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A SHORT HISTORY 

OF 

PITTSBURGH 

1758-1908 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2010 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/shorthistoryofpi01chur 




George Washington, the first Pittshurgher 



A SHORT HISTORY 



OF 



PITTSBURGH 



1758-1908 



BY 

SAMUEL HARDEN CHURCH 

AUTHOR OF "OLIVER CROMWELL: A HISTORY," 

" PENRUDDOCK OF THE WHITE LAMBS," "JOHN MARMADUKE,' 

"BEOWULF: A POEM," ETC. 




PRINTED AT 

THE DE VINNE PRESS 

NEW YORK 

1908 






lUBKARYof CONaRBSS.' 
I wo tioples KeCHivei* 

SEP 21 lyua 



Copyright, 1908, by 
Samuel Harden Church 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

HISTORICAL 13 

INDUSTRIAL 79 

INTELLECTUAL . 89 

INDEX 127 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

/ 



George Washington, the first Pittsburgher Frontisp 



tece 



PAGE 



William Pitt, Earl of Chatham 26 



Plan of Fort Pitt 



31 



Henry Bouquet 52 

Block House of Fort Pitt. Built in 1764 ^3 

Anthony Wayne a\ 

Conestoga wagon a a 

Stage-coach ^6 

Over the mountains in 1839; canal boat being hauled over the portage road 47 

View of Old Pittsburgh, 18 17 50 

Pittsburgh, showing the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers 80 

The Pittsburgh Country Club 88 

Panther Hollow Bridge, Schenley Park . ; o? 

Entrance to Highland Park 07 

The Carnegie Institute 10 1 

Court-house 104 

Zoological Garden in Highland Park 107 

Carnegie Technical Schools (uncompleted) . . . ill 

Margaret Morrison Carnegie School for Women iir 

Design of University of Pittsburgh i lo 

Allegheny Observatory, University of Pittsburgh 123 

Phipps Conservatory, Schenley Park 12c 



PREFACE 

Some ten years ago I contributed to a book on "His- 
toric Towns," published by G. P. Putnam's Sons, of 
New York and London, a brief historical sketch of 
Pittsburgh. The approach of the one hundred and fif- 
tieth anniversary of the founding of Pittsburgh, and 
the elaborate celebrations planned in connection there- 
with, led to many requests that I would reprint the 
sketch in its own covers as a souvenir of the occasion. 
Finding it quite inadequate for permanent preserva- 
tion in its original form, I have, after much research 
and painstaking labor, rewritten the entire work, add- 
ing many new materials, and making of it what I be- 
lieve to be a complete, though a short, history of our 
city. The story has developed itself into three natural 
divisions: historical, industrial, and intellectual, and 
the record will show that under either one of these 
titles Pittsburgh is a notable, and under all of them, 
an imperial, city. 

S 1-T C 

Lake Placid Club, 

Adirondack Mountains, 
August 25, 1908. 



A SHORT HISTORY 

OF 

PITTSBURGH 

1758-1908 





^ 



A SHORT HISTORY OF 
PITTSBURGH 

HISTORICAL 



EORGE WASHINGTON, the 

Father of his Country, is equally 
the Father of Pittsburgh, for he 
came thither in November, 1753, 
and established the location of the 
now imperial city by choosing it as 
the best place for a fort. Wash- 
ington was then twenty-one years 

old. He had by that time written his precocious one 

hundred and ten maxims of civility and good behavior; 

had declined to be a midshipman in the British navy; 

had made his only sea-voyage to Barbados ; had surveyed 

C13] 




A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

the estates of Lord Fairfax, going for months into the 
forest without fear of savage Indians or wild beasts ; and 
was now a major of Virginia militia. In pursuance of the 
claim of Virginia that she owned that part of Pennsyl- 
vania in which Pittsburgh is situated, Washington came 
there as the agent of Governor Dinwiddie to treat 
with the Indians. With an eye alert for the dangers 
of the wilderness, and with Christopher Gist beside 
him, the young Virginian pushed his cautious way to 
"The Point" of land where the confluence of the 
Monongahela and Allegheny rivers forms the Ohio. 
That, he declared, with clear military instinct, was the 
best site for a fort; and he rejected the promontory two 
miles below, which the Indians had recommended for 
that purpose. Washington made six visits to the 
vicinity of Pittsburgh, all before his presidency, and 
on three of them (1753, 1758, and 1770), he entered 
the limits of the present city. At the time of despatch- 
ing the army to suppress the whisky insurrection, while 
he was President, in 1794, he came toward Pittsburgh 
as far as Bedford, and then, after planning the march, 
returned to Philadelphia. His contact with the place 
was, therefore, frequent, and his information always 
very complete. There is a tradition, none the less pop- 
ular because it cannot be proved, which ascribes to 
Washington the credit of having suggested the name of 
Pittsburgh to General Forbes when the place was cap- 
tured from the French. However this may be, we do 



HISTORICAL 

know that Washington was certainly present when the 
English flag was hoisted and the city named Pitts- 
burgh, on Sunday, November 26, 1758. And at that 
moment Pittsburgh became a chief bulwark of the 
British Empire in America. 



II 

As early as 1728, a daring hunter or trader found the 
Indians at the head waters of the Ohio, — among them 
the Delawares, Shawanese, Mohicans, and Iroquois, — 
whither they tracked the bear from their village of 
Logstown, seventeen miles down the river. They also 
employed the country roundabout as a highway for 
their march to battle against other tribes, and against 
each other. At that time France and England were 
disputing for the new continent. France, by right of 
her discovery of the Mississippi, claimed all lands 
drained by that river and its tributaries, a contention 
which would naturally plant her banner upon the sum- 
mit of the Alleghany Mountains. England, on the 
other hand, claimed everything from ocean shore to 
ocean shore. This situation produced war, and Pitts- 
burgh became the strategic key of the great Middle 
West. The French made early endeavors to win the 
allegiance of the Indians, and felt encouraged to press 
their friendly overtures because they usually came 

D53 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

among the red men for trading or exploration, while 
the English invariably seized and occupied their lands. 
In 1731 some French settlers did attempt to build a 
group of houses at Pittsburgh, but the Indians com- 
pelled them to go away. The next year the governor 
of Pennsylvania summoned two Indian chiefs from 
Pittsburgh to say why they had been going to see the 
French governor at Montreal; and they gave answer 
that he had sent for them only to express the hope that 
both English and French traders might meet at Pitts- 
burgh and carry on trade amicably. The governor of 
Pennsylvania sought to induce the tribes to draw them- 
selves farther east, where they might be made to feel 
the hand of authority, but Sassoonan, their chief, for- 
bade them to stir. An Iroquois chief who joined his 
entreaties to those of the governor was soon afterward 
killed by some Shawanese braves, but they were forced 
to flee into Virginia to escape the vengeance of his 
tribe. 

Louis Celeron, a French officer, made an exploration 
of the country contiguous to Pittsburgh in 1747, and 
formally enjoined the governor of Pennsylvania not 
to occupy the ground, as France claimed its sover- 
eignty. A year later the Ohio Company was formed, 
with a charter ceding an immense tract of land for sale 
and development, including Pittsburgh. This corpo- 
ration built some storehouses at Logstown to facilitate 
their trade with the Indians, which were captured by 

D63 



HISTORICAL 

the French, together with skins and commodities val- 
ued at 20,000 francs ; and the purposes of the company 
were never accomplished. 



Ill 

Washington's first visit to Pittsburgh occurred in 
November, 1753, while he was on his way to the French 
fort at Leboeuff. He was carrying a letter from the 
Ohio Company to Contrecoeur, protesting against the 
plans of the French commander in undertaking to 
establish a line of forts to reach from Lake Erie to the 
mouth of the Ohio River. The winter season was be- 
coming very severe, in despite of which Washington 
and Gist were forced to swim with their horses across 
the Allegheny River. On the way they fell in with a 
friendly Indian, Keyashuta, a Seneca chief, who 
showed them much kindness, and for whom a suburban 
town, Guyasuta, is named. 

Washington, in writing of his first sight of the forks 
of the river, says: 

As I got down before the canoe, I spent some time in viewing 
the rivers and the land at the fork, which I think extremely well 
situated for a fort, as it has the absolute command of both rivers. 
The land at the point is twenty-five feet above the common sur- 
face of the water, and a considerable bottom of flat, well-timbered 
land all around it very convenient for building. The rivers are 
each a quarter of a mile across and run here very nearly at right 

[173 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

angles, the Allegheny being northeast and the Monongahela south- 
east. The former of these two is a very rapid and swift-running 
water, the other deep and still without any perceptible fall. 
About two miles from this on the southeast side of the river at a 
place where the Ohio Company intended to erect a fort, lives 
Shingiss, King of the Delawares. We called upon him to invite 
him to a council at Logstown. As I had taken a good deal of 
notice yesterday at the fork, my curiosity led me to examine this 
more particularly and I think it greatly inferior either for defense 
or advantages, especially the latter. For a fort at the fork would 
be equally well situated on the Ohio and have the entire command 
of the Monongahela, which runs up our settlement and is ex- 
tremely well designed for water carriage, as it is of a deep, still 
nature. Besides, a fort at the fork might be built at much less 
expense than at the other place. 



Leaving Pittsburgh, Washington and Gist pro- 
ceeded in a northeasterly direction, and after a day's 
journey they came upon an Indian settlement, and were 
constrained by the tribe to remain there for three days. 
A group of these Indians accompanied the two travel- 
ers to the French fort, and on the journey a large 
number of bear and deer were killed. At Leboeuff 
Washington received from the French commander a 
very satisfactory reply. On the trip back the two 
pioneers encountered almost insupportable hardships. 
Lacking proper food, their horses died, so that they 
were forced to push forward in canoes, often finding it 
necessary, when the creeks were frozen, to carry their 
craft for long stretches overland. When Venango was 
reached, Washington, whose clothes were now in tat- 

D83 



HISTORICAL 

ters, procured an Indian costume, and he and Gist con- 
tinued their way on foot, accompanied by an Indian 
guide. At this point an illustrious career was put in 
deadly peril, for on the second day of his escort, the 
treacherous guide deliberately fired his gun at Wash- 
ington when standing only a few feet away from him. 
Bad marksmanship saved the intended victim, and Gist 
started to kill the Indian on the spot; but Washington, 
patient then as always, sent the savage away, giving 
him provisions to last until he could reach his tribe. 
But an apprehension of further trouble from the friends 
of the discomfited guide impelled the two men to travel 
all that night and the next day, although Washington 
was suffering acute agony from his frosted feet. While 
recrossing the Allegheny River on a rude raft, Wash- 
ington fell into the icy waters and was saved by Gist 
from drowning only after the greatest efforts had been 
employed to rescue him. Reaching Herr's Island 
(within the present city limits) , they built a fire and 
camped there for the night, but in the morning Gist's 
hands were frozen. The bitter cold had now solidified 
the river and the two wanderers passed over it on foot. 
By noon they had reached the home of John Frazier, at 
Turtle Creek, where they were given clothes and fresh 
supplies. The journey was completed in three more 
days, and on receiving the reply of Contrecoeur, the 
English began their preparations for sending troops to 
Pittsburgh. 

c 193 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 



IV 

As soon as Washington's advice as to the location of 
the fort was received, Captain William Trent was de- 
spatched to Pittsburgh with a force of soldiers and 
workmen, packhorses, and materials, and he began in 
all haste to erect a stronghold. The French had al- 
ready built forts on the northern lakes, and they now 
sent Captain Contrecoeur down the Allegheny with one 
thousand French, Canadians, and Indians, and eigh- 
teen pieces of cannon, in a flotilla of sixty bateaux and 
three hundred canoes. Trent had planted himself in 
Pittsburgh on February 17, 1754, a date important be- 
cause it marks the first permanent white settlement 
there. But his work had been retarded alike by the 
small number of his men and the severity of the win- 
ter; and when Contrecoeur arrived in April, the young 
subaltern who commanded in Trent's absence surren- 
dered the unfinished works, and was permitted to 
march away with his thirty-three men. The French 
completed the fort and named it Duquesne, in honor 
of the governor of Canada; and they held possession of 
it for four years. 

Immediately on the loss of this fort, Virginia sent a 
force under Washington to retake it. Washington 
surprised a French detachment near Great Meadows, 
and killed their commander, Jumonville. When 

[20] 



HISTORICAL 

a larger expedition came against him, he put up a 
stockade near the site of Uniontown, naming it Fort 
Necessity, which he was compelled to yield on terms 
permitting him to march away with the honors of war. 



V 

The next year (1755) General Edward Braddock 
came over with two regiments of British soldiers, and 
after augmenting his force with Colonial troops and a 
few Indians, began his fatal march upon Fort Du- 
quesne. Braddock's testy disposition, his consuming 
egotism, his contempt for the Colonial soldiers, and his 
stubborn adherence to military maxims that were inap- 
plicable to the warfare of the wilderness, alienated the 
respect and confidence of the American contingent, 
robbed him of an easy victory, and cost him his life. Ben- 
jamin Franklin had warned him against the imminent 
risk of Indian ambuscades, but he had contemptuously 
replied: "These savages may indeed be a formidable 
enemy to your raw American militia; but upon the 
king's regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossi- 
ble they should make any impression." Some of his 
English staff-officers urged him to send the rangers in 
advance and to deploy his Indians as scouts, but he re- 
jected their prudent suggestions with a sneer. On 
July 9 his army, comprising twenty-two hundred sol- 

C21: 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

diers and one hundred and fifty Indians, was march- 
ing down the south bank of the Monongahela. The 
variant color and fashion of the expedition, — the red- 
coated regulars, the blue-coated Americans, the naval 
detachment, the rangers in deerskin shirts and leggins, 
the savages half-naked and befeathered, the glint of 
sword and gun in the hot daylight, the long wagon 
train, the lumbering cannon, the drove of bullocks, the 
royal banner and the Colonial gonfalon, — the pomp 
and puissance of it all composed a spectacle of martial 
splendor unseen in that country before. On the right 
was the tranquil river, and on the left the trackless 
wilderness whence the startled deer sprang into a 
deeper solitude. At noon the expedition crossed the 
river and pressed on toward Fort Duquesne, eight 
miles below, expectant of victory. What need to send 
out scouts when the king's troops are here'? Let young 
George Washington and the rest urge it all they may; 
the thing is beneath the dignity of his majesty's general. 
Meanwhile, all was not tranquil at the French fort. 
Surrender was talked of, but Captain Beaujeu deter- 
mined to lead a force out to meet the approaching 
army. Taking with him a total effective of thirty-six 
officers and cadets, seventy-two regular soldiers, one 
hundred and forty-six Canadians, and about six hun- 
dred Indian warriors, a command less than half the 
number of the enemy, he sallied out to meet him. How 
insignificant were the armed forces with which the two 



HISTORICAL 

empires were now challenging each other for the splen- 
did prize of a new world I Beaujeu, gaily clad in a 
fringed hunting dress, intrepidly pressed on until he 
came in sight of the English invaders. As soon as the 
alert French commander felt the hot breath of his foe 
he waved his hat and his faithful followers disappeared 
behind rocks and trees as if the very earth had swal- 
lowed them. 

The unsuspecting English came on. But here, when 
they have crossed, is a level plain, elevated but a few 
feet above the surface of the river, extending nearly 
half a mile landwards, and then gradually ascending 
into thickly wooded hills, with Fort Duquesne beyond. 
The troops in front had crossed the plain and plunged 
into the road through the forest for a hundred feet 
when a heavy discharge of musketry and arrows was 
poured upon them, which wrought in them a consterna- 
tion all the greater because they could see no foe any- 
where. They shot at random, and not without effect, 
for when Beaujeu fell the Canadians began to jflee and 
the Indians quailed in their covers before the cannon 
fire of the English. But the French fighters were ral- 
lied back to their hidden recesses, and they now kept up 
an incessant and destructive fire. In this distressing 
situation the English fell back into the plain. Brad- 
dock rode in among them, and he and his officers per- 
sistently endeavored to rally them, but without success. 
The Colonial troops adopted the Indian method, and 

[233 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

each man fought for himself behind a tree. This was 
forbidden by Braddock, who attempted to form his men 
in platoons and columns, making their slaughter inev- 
itable. The French and Indians, concealed in the 
ravines and behind trees, kept up a cruel and deadly 
fire, until the British soldiers lost all presence of mind 
and began to shoot each other and their own officers, 
and hundreds were thus slain. The Virginia companies 
charged gallantly up a hill with a loss of but three men, 
but when they reached the summit the British soldiery, 
mistaking them for the enemy, fired upon them, killing 
fifty out of eighty men. The Colonial troops then re- 
sumed the Indian fashion of fighting from behind trees, 
which provoked Braddock, who had had five horses 
killed under him in three hours, to storm at them and 
strike them with his sword. At this moment he was 
fatally wounded, and many of his men now fled away 
from the hopeless action, not waiting to hear their 
general's fainting order to retreat. Washington had 
had two horses killed and received three bullets through 
his coat. Being the only mounted officer who was not 
disabled, he drew up the troops still on the field, 
directed their retreat, maintaining himself at the rear 
with great coolness and courage, and brought away his 
wounded general. Sixty-four British and American 
officers, and nearly one thousand privates, were killed 
or wounded in this battle, while the total French and 
Indian loss was not over sixty. A few prisoners captured 



HISTORICAL 

by the Indians were brought to Pittsburgh and burnt at 
the stake. Four days after the fight Braddock died, ex- 
claiming to the last, "Who would have thought it!" 



VI 

Despondency seized the English settlers after Brad- 
dock's defeat. But two years afterward William Pitt 
became prime minister, and he thrilled the nation with 
his appeal to protect the Colonies against France and 
the savages. 

William Pitt, the great Earl of Chatham, the man for 
whom our city is named, was one of the most indomit- 
able characters in the statesmanship of modern times. 
Born in November, 1708, he was educated at Eton and 
at Oxford, then traveled in France and Italy, and was 
elected to Parliament when twenty-seven years old. 
His early addresses were not models either of force or 
logic, but the fluent speech and many personal attrac- 
tions of the young orator instantly caught the attention 
of the people, who always listened to him with favor; 
and it was not long before his constant participation in 
public affairs developed the splendid talents which he 
possessed. Wayward and affected in little things, Pitt 
attacked the great problems of government with the 
bold confidence of a master spirit, impressing the clear 
genius of his leadership upon the yearning heart of 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

England in every emergency of peace or war. Too 
great to be consistent, he never hesitated to change his 




William Pitt, Earl ot Chatham 

tactics or his opinion when the occasion developed the 
utility of another course. Ordinary men have been 
more faithful to asserted principles, but no statesman 
more frequently departed from asserted principles to 

1:26] 



HISTORICAL 

secure achievements which redounded to the honor of 
the nation. During the thirty years in which Pitt exer- 
cised the magic spell of his eloquence and power over 
the English Parliament, the stakes for which he con- 
tended against the world were no less than the domin- 
ion of North America and of India. In the pursuit of 
these policies he fought Spain and subdued her armies. 
He subsidized the king of Prussia to his interests. He 
destroyed the navy of France and wrested from her the 
larger part of her possessions beyond sea. Having al- 
ways a clear conception of the remotest aim of national 
aspiration, he was content to leave the designing of 
operations in detail to the humbler servants of the gov- 
ernment, reserving to himself the mighty concentration 
of his powers upon the general purpose for which the 
nation was striving. The king trusted him, the Com- 
mons obeyed him, the people adored him and called him 
the Great Commoner. He was wise, brave, sincere, 
tolerant, and humane ; and no man could more deserve 
the honor of having named for him a city which was 
destined to become rich and famous, keeping his mem- 
ory in more enduring fame than bronze or marble. 



VII 

Pitt's letters inspired the Americans with new hope, 
and he promised to send them British troops and to sup- 

C27] 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

ply their own militia with arms, ammunition, tents, and 
provisions at the king's charge. He sent twelve thou- 
sand soldiers from England, which were joined to a 
Colonial force aggregating fifty thousand men, the 
most formidable army yet seen in the new world. The 
plan of campaign embraced three expeditions : the first 
against Louisburg, in the island of Cape Breton, which 
was successful ; the second against Ticonderoga, which 
succeeded after a defeat; and the third against Fort 
Duquesne. General Forbes, born at Dunfermline 
(whence have come others to Pittsburgh), commanded 
this expedition, comprising about seven thousand men. 
The militia from Virginia, North Carolina, and Mary- 
land was led by Washington, whose independent spirit 
led the testy Scotchman, made irritable by a malady 
which was soon to cause his death, to declare that 
Washington's "behavior about the roads was no wa3^s 
like a soldier." But we cannot believe that the young 
Virginian was moved by any motive but the public 
good. On September 12, 1758, Major Grant, a High- 
lander, led an advance guard of eight hundred and 
fifty men to a point one mile from the fort, which is 
still called Grant's Hill, on which the court-house now 
stands, where he rashly permitted himself to be sur- 
rounded and attacked by the French and Indians, half 
his force being killed or wounded, and himself slain. 
Washington followed soon after, and opened a road for 
the advance of the main body under Forbes. Fort 

[28;] 



HISTORICAL 

Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, had just been taken by 
General Amherst, with the result that supplies for Fort 
Duquesne were cut off. When, therefore, Captain 
Ligneris, the French commandant, learned of the ad- 
vance of a superior force, having no hope of reinforce- 
ments, he blew up the fort, set fire to the adjacent 
buildings, and drew his garrison away. 

On Saturday, November 25, 1758, amidst a fierce 
snowstorm, the English took possession of the place, 
and Colonel Armstrong, in the presence of Forbes and 
Washington, hauled up the puissant banner of Great 
Britain, while cannons boomed and the exulting vic- 
tors cheered. On the next day, General Forbes wrote 
to Governor Denny from 'Tort Duquesne, now Pitts- 
burgh,' the 26th of November, 1758," and this was the 
first use of that name. On this same Sunday the Rev. 
Mr. Beatty, a Presbyterian chaplain, preached a ser- 
mon in thanksgivmg for the superiority of British 
arms,— the first Protestant service in Pittsburgh. The 
French had had a Roman Catholic chaplain. Father 
Baron, during their occupancy. On the next day Forbes 
wrote to Pitt with a vision of prophecy as follows : 

c^y PiTTSBOURGH, 27th Novcmr, 1758. 

I do myself the Honour of acquainting you that it has pleased 
God to crown His Majesty's Arms with Success over all His. 
Enemies upon the Ohio, by my having obliged the enemy to bura 

1 Local controversialists should note that the man who named the city 
spelt it with the final h. 

C293 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

and abandon Fort Du Ouesne, which they effectuated on the 
25th :, and of which I took possession next day, the Enemy hav- 
ing made their Escape down the River towards the Missisippi in 
their Boats, being abandoned by their Indians, whom I had pre- 
viously engaged to leave them, and who now seem all willing and 
ready to implore His Majesty's most Gracious Protection. So 
give me leave to congratulate you upon this great Event, of hav- 
ing totally expelled the French from this prodigious tract of 
Country, and of having reconciled the various tribes of Indians 
inhabiting it to His Majesty's Government. 

I have used the freedom of giving your name to Fort Du 
Ouesne, as I hope it was in some measure the being actuated by 
your spirits that now makes us Masters of the place. . . . 
These dreary deserts will soon be the richest and most fertile of 
any possest by the British in N? America. I have the honour to 
be with great regard and Esteem Sir, 

Your most obedt & most hum^e. serv*. 

Jo : Forbes. 



VIII 

As a place of urgent shelter the English proceeded to 
build a new fort about two hundred yards from the site 
of Fort Duquesne, which is traditionally known as the 
first Fort Pitt, and was probably so called by the garri- 
son, although the letters written from there during the 
next few months refer to it as ''the camp at Pittsburgh." 
This stronghold cut off French transportation to the 
Mississippi by way of the Ohio River, and the only re- 
maining route, by way of the Great Lakes, was soon 

[30] 



HISTORICAL 

afterward closed by the fall of Fort Niagara. The fall 
of Quebec, with the death of the two opposing generals, 
Montcalm and Wolfe, and the capture of Montreal, 




Plan of Fort Pitt 



ended the claims of France to sovereignty in the new 
world. 

The new fort being found too small. General Stan- 
wix built a second Fort Pitt, much larger and stronger, 
designed for a garrison of one thousand men. The 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

Indians viewed the new-comers with suspicion, but 
Colonel Henry Bouquet assured them, with diplomatic 




Henrv Bouquet 

tergiversation, that, "We have not come here to take 
possession of your country in a hostile manner, as the 
French did when they came among you, but to open a 




3 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

large and extensive trade with you and all other nations 
of Indians to the westward." A redoubt (the "Block- 
house") , built by Colonel Bouquet in 1764, still stands, 
in a very good state of preservation, being cared for 
by the Daughters of the American Revolution. The 
protection of the garrison naturally attracted a few 
traders, merchants, and pioneers to Pittsburgh, and a 
permanent population began to grow. 

But the indigenous race continued to resent the ex- 
tension of white encroachment; and they formed a 
secret confederacy under Pontiac, the renowned Ot- 
tawa chief, who planned a simultaneous attack on all 
the white frontier posts. This uprising was attended 
by atrocious cruelties at many of the points attacked, 
but we may take note here of the movement only as it 
affected Pittsburgh. At the grand council held by the 
tribes, a bundle of sticks had been given to every tribe, 
each bundle containing as many sticks as there were 
days intervening before the deadly assault should be- 
gin. One stick was to be drawn from the bundle every 
day until but one remained, which was to signal the 
outbreak for that day. This was the best calendar the 
barbarian mind could devise. At Pittsburgh, a Dela- 
ware squaw who was friendly to the whites had stealth- 
ily taken out three of the sticks, thus precipitating the 
attack on Fort Pitt three days in advance of the time 
appointed. 

The last stick was reached on June 22, 1763, and the 

1:34;] 



HISTORICAL 

Delawares and Shawanese began the assault in the after- 
noon, under Simon Ecuyer. The people of Pittsburgh 
took shelter in the fort, and held out while waiting 
for reinforcements. Colonel Bouquet hurried forward 
a force of five hundred men, but they were intercepted 
at Bushy Run, where a bloody battle was fought. 
Bouquet had fifty men killed and sixty wounded, but 
inflicted a much greater loss on his savage foes and 
gained the fort, relieving the siege. As soon as Bou- 
quet could recruit his command, he moved down the 
Ohio, attacked the Indians, liberated some of their 
prisoners, and taught the red men to respect the power 
that controlled at Pittsburgh. 

In 1768 the Indians ceded their lands about Pitts- 
burgh to the Colonies, and civilization was then free to 
spread over them. In 1774 a land office was opened in 
Pittsburgh by Governor Dunmore, and land warrants 
were granted on payment of two shillings and six pence 
purchase money, at the rate of ten pounds per one hun- 
dred acres. 



IX 

Washington made his last visit to Pittsburgh in Octo- 
ber, 1770, when, on his way to the Kanawha River, he 
stopped here for several days, and lodged with Samuel 
Semple, the first innkeeper, whose hostelry stood, and 
still stands, at the corner of Water and Ferry Streets. 

[353 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

This house was later known as the Virginian Hotel, and 
for many years furnished entertainment to those early 
travelers. The building, erected in 1764 by Colonel 
George Morgan, is now nearly one hundred and forty 
years old, and is still devoted to public hospitality, but 
the character of its patronage has changed from George 
Washington to the deck roysterers who lodge there be- 
tween their trips on the river packets. At the time of 
Washington's visit the lower story of the house was 
divided into three rooms, two facing on Ferry Street, 
and the third, a large room, on Water Street, and in this 
latter room was placed, in the year of Washington's 
stop there, the first billiard table ever brought to Pitts- 
burgh. The mahogany steps from the first to the second 
floors, which were once the pride of the place, are still 
in the house. ^ According to Washington's journal, 
there were in Pittsburgh in 1770 twenty houses situ- 
ated on Water Street, facing the Monongahela River. 
These were occupied by traders and their families. 
The population at that time is estimated at one hun- 
dred and twenty-six men, women, and children, besides 
a garrison consisting of two companies of British 
troops. 

In October, 1772, Fort Pitt was ordered abandoned. 
The works about Pittsburgh, from first to last, had cost 
the British Crown some three hundred thousand dollars, 

1 On going again to look at this house, which I have seen many times, I find 
that it was recently demolished to make room for railway improvements. 



HISTORICAL 

but the salvage on the stone, brick, and iron of the ex- 
isting redoubts amounted to only two hundred and fifty 
dollars. The Blockhouse was repaired and occupied 
for a time by Dr. John Connelly; and during the Revo- 
lution it was constantly used by our Colonial troops. 



X 

With the French out of the country, and with Wil- 
liam Pitt out of office and incapacitated by age, the 
Colonies began to feel the oppression of a British policy 
which British statesmen and British historians to-day 
most bitterly condemn. America's opposition to tyr- 
anny found its natural expression in the Battle of Lex- 
ington, April 19, 1775. The fires of patriotism leapt 
through the continent and the little settlement at Pitts- 
burgh was quickly aflame with the national spirit. On 
May 16th a convention was held at Pittsburgh, which 
resolved that 

This committee have the highest sense of the spirited behavior 
of their brethren in New England, and do most cordially approve 
of their opposing the invaders of American rights and privileges 
to the utmost extreme, and that each member of this committee, 
respectively, will animate and encourage their neighborhood to 
follow the brave example. 

No foreign soldiers were sent over the mountains to 
Pittsburgh, but a more merciless foe, who would attack 

[37] 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

and harass with remorseless cruelty, was impressed into 
the English service, despite the horrified protests of 
some of her wisest statesmen. American treaties with 
the Indians had no force against the allurements of for- 
eign gold, and under this unholy alliance men were 
burnt at the stake, women were carried away, and 
cabins were destroyed. 

With the aim of regaining the friendship of the In- 
dians, Congress appointed commissioners who met the 
tribes at Pittsburgh; and Colonel George Morgan, 
Indian agent, writes to John Hancock, November 8, 
1776: 

I have the happiness to inform you that the cloud that threat- 
ened to break over us is hkely to disperse. The Six Nations, with 
the Muncies, Delawares, Shawanese, and Mohicans, who have 
been assembled here with their principal chiefs and warriors to 
the number of 644, have given the strongest assurance of their 
determination to preserve inviolate the peace and neutrality with 
the United States. 

These amicable expectations were not realized, and 
General Edward Hand came to Pittsburgh the next 
year and planned an expedition against the Indians. 
Colonel Broadhead took out Hand's expedition in the 
summer and burned the Indian towns. 

The depreciation of paper currency, or Continental 
money, had by this time brought the serious burden of 
high prices upon the people. The traders, who de- 



HISTORICAL 

manded apparently exorbitant rates for their goods, 
were denounced in public meetings at Pittsburgh as 
being "now commonly known by the disgraceful epi- 
thet of speculators, of more malignant natures than the 
savage Mingoes in the wilderness." This hardship 
grew in severity until the finances were put upon a 
more stable basis. 

In 1781, there was demoralization and mutiny at 
Fort Pitt, and General William Irvine was put in com- 
mand. His firm hand soon restored the garrison to obe- 
dience. The close of the war with Great Britain in 
that year was celebrated by General Irvine by the issue 
of an order at the fort, November 6, 1781, requiring all, 
as a sailor would say, ''to splice the mainbrace." This 
order read as follows : 

The commissioners will issue a gill of whisky, extraordinary, 
to the non-commissioned officers and privates, upon this joyful 
occasion. 

The Penn family had purchased the Pittsburgh re- 
gion from the Indians in 1768, and they would offer 
none of it for sale until 1783. Up to this time they 
had held the charter to Pennsylvania; but as they had 
maintained a steadfast allegiance to the mother coun- 
try, the general assembly annulled their title, except 
to allow them to retain the ownership of various manors 
throughout the State, embracing half a million acres. 

In order to relieve the people of Pittsburgh from go- 

[39: 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

ing to Greensburg to the court-house in their sacred 
right of suing and being sued, the general assembly 
erected Allegheny County out of parts of Westmore- 
land and Washington Counties, September 24, 1788. 
This county originally comprised, in addition to its 
present limits, what are now Armstrong, Beaver, But- 
ler, Crawford, Erie, Mercer, Venango, and Warren 
Counties. The Act required that the court-house and 
jail should be located in Allegheny (just across the 
river from Pittsburgh), but as there was no protection 
against Indians there, an amendment established Pitts- 
burgh as the county seat. The first court was held at 
Fort Pitt; and the next day a ducking-stool was erected 
for the district, at "The Point" in the three rivers. 

In 1785, the dispute between Virginia and Pennsyl- 
vania for the possession of Pittsburgh was settled by 
the award of a joint commission in favor of Pennsyl- 
vania. 

A writer says that in 1786 Pittsburgh contained 
thirty-six log houses, one stone, and one frame house, 
and five small stores. Another records that the popu- 
lation "is almost entirely Scots and Irish, who live in 
log houses." A third says of these log houses: "Now 
and then one had assumed the appearance of neatness 
and comfort." 

The first newspaper, the Pittsburgh "Gazette," was 
established July 29, 1786. A mail route to Philadel- 
phia, by horseback, was adopted in the same year. On 

C403 



HISTORICAL 

September 29, 1787, the Legislature granted a charter 
to the Pittsburgh Academy, a school that has grown 




Anthony Wayne 

steadily in usefulness and power as the Western Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania, and which has in this year 
(July 11, 1908) appropriately altered its name to Uni- 
versity of Pittsburgh. 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

In 1791, the Indians became vindictive and danger- 
ous, and General Arthur St. Clair, with a force of 
twenty-three hundred men, was sent down the river to 
punish them. Neglecting President Washington's im- 
perative injunction to avoid a surprise, he led his com- 
mand into an ambush and lost half of it in the most 
disastrous battle with the redskins since the time of 
Braddock. In the general alarm that ensued. Fort Pitt 
being in a state of decay, a new fort was built in Pitts- 
burgh at Ninth and Tenth Streets and Penn Avenue, — 
a stronghold that included bastions, blockhouses, bar- 
racks, etc., and was named Fort Lafayette. General 
Anthony Wayne was then selected to command another 
expedition against the savages, and he arrived in Pitts- 
burgh in June, 1792. After drilling his troops and 
making preparations for two years, in the course of 
which he erected several forts in the West, including 
Fort Defiance and Fort Wayne, he fought the Indians 
and crushed their strength and spirit. On his return a 
lasting peace was made with them, and there were no 
further raids about Pittsburgh. 



XI 

The whisky insurrection demands a brief reference. 
Whisky seems to be a steady concomitant of civiliza- 
tion. As soon as the white settlers had planted them- 

[423 



HISTORICAL 

selves securely at Pittsburgh, they made requisition on 
Philadelphia for six thousand kegs of flour and three 
thousand kegs of whisky — a disproportion as startling 
as Falstaff's intolerable deal of sack to one half-penny- 
worth of bread. Congress, in 1791, passed an excise 
law to assist in paying the war debt. The measure was 
very unpopular, and its operation was forcibly resisted, 
particularly in Pittsburgh, which was noted then, as 
now, for the quantity and quality of its whisky. There 
were distilleries on nearly every stream emptying into 
the Monongahela. The time and circumstances made 
the tax odious. The Revolutionary War had just 
closed, the pioneers were in the midst of great Indian 
troubles, and money was scarce, of low value, and very 
hard to obtain. The people of the new country were 
unused to the exercise of stringent laws. The progress 
of the French Revolution encouraged the settlers to 
account themselves oppressed by similar tyrannies, 
against which some of them persuaded themselves simi- 
lar resistance should be made. Genet, the French 
demagogue, was sowing sedition everywhere. Lafay- 
ette's participation in the French Revolution gave it in 
America, where he was deservedly beloved, a prestige 
which it could never have gained for itself. Distillers 
who paid the tax were assaulted; some of them were 
tarred and feathered ; others were taken into the forest 
and tied to trees; their houses and barns were burned; 
their property was carried away or destroyed. Several 

Us] 




u 



HISTORICAL 

thousand insurgents assembled at Braddock's Field, 
and marched on Pittsburgh, where the citizens gave 
them food and submitted to a reign of terror. Then 
President Washington sent an army of fifteen thousand 
troops against them, and they melted away, as a mob 
will ever do when the strong arm of government smites 
it without fear or respect. 



XII 

It was not long after the close of the Revolutionary 
War before Pittsburgh was recognized as the natural 
gateway of the Atlantic seaboard to the West and 
South, and the necessity for an improved system of 
transportation became imperative. The earliest method 
of transportation through the American wilderness re- 
quired the eastern merchants to forward their goods in 
Conestoga wagons to Shippensburg and Chambersburg, 
Pennsylvania, and Hagerstown, Maryland, and thence 
to Pittsburgh on packhorses, where they were ex- 
changed for Pittsburgh products, and these in turn 
were carried by boat to New Orleans, where they were 
exchanged for sugar, molasses, and similar commodi- 
ties, which were carried through the gulf and along the 
coast to Baltimore and Philadelphia. For passenger 
travel the stage-coach furnished the most luxurious 
method then known. 



HISTORICAL 

The people of Pennsylvania had given considerable 
attention to inland improvements and as early as 1791 
they began to formulate the daring project of construct- 
ing a canal system from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, 




Over the mountains in 1839; canal boat being hauled over the portage road 



with a portage road over the crest of the Alleghany 
Mountains. In 1825, the governor appointed commis- 
sioners for making surveys, certain residents of Pitts- 
burgh being chosen on the board, and in 1826 (February 
25th) the Legislature passed an act authorizing the com- 
mencement of work on the canal at the expense of the 

[47] 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

State. The western section was completed and the first 
boat entered Pittsburgh on November lO, 1829. Sub- 
sequent acts provided for the various eastern sections, 
including the building of the portage railroad over the 
mountains, and by April 16, 1834, a through line was 
in operation from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. The 
termini of the road were Hollidaysburg, 1,398 feet be- 
low the mountain summit, and Johnstown, 1,771 feet 
below the summit. The boats were taken from the 
water like amphibious monsters and hauled up the ten 
inclined planes by stationary engines. The total cost 
of the canal and portage railroad was about ten million 
dollars, and the entire system was sold to the Penn- 
sylvania Railroad Company in 1857 (June 2^th) for 
$7,500,000. The importance of canal transportation 
in the popular mind is shown by the fact that in 1828, 
when the Pennsylvania Legislature granted a charter 
to the Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad Company 
(which never constructed its road) , the act stated that 
the purpose of the railroad was to connect Pittsburgh 
with the canal at Massillon, Ohio. The railroad 
quickly superseded the canal, however, and when men 
perceived that the mountains could be conquered by a 
portage road, it was a natural step to plan the Penn- 
sylvania and Baltimore and Ohio railroads on a system 
of easy grades, so that all obstacles of height and dis- 
tance were annihilated. The Pennsylvania Railroad 
was incorporated April 13, 1846, and completed its 

[48] 



HISTORICAL 

roadway from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh February ij", 
1854. The canal was for a time operated by the Penn- 
sylvania Canal Company in the interest of the Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad Company, but its use was gradually 
abandoned. The division from Pittsburgh to Johns- 
town ceased to be operated in 1864, and that portion 
which was in the Juniata Valley was used until 1899, 
while the portion lying along the Susquehanna River 
was operated until 1900.^ 

Other railroads came as they were needed. The 
Baltimore and Ohio received a charter from the State 
of Maryland on February 28, 1827, but did not reach 
Pittsburgh until December 12, i860, when its Pitts- 
burgh and Connellsville branch was opened. The Ohio 
and Pennsylvania Railroad was built into Pittsburgh 
July 4, 1851, and became part of the Pittsburgh, 
Fort Wayne and Chicago Railway in 1856, that line 
reaching Chicago in 1859. The Pittsburgh, Cincin- 
nati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway (the "Pan Han- 
dle") was opened between Pittsburgh and Columbus, 
Ohio, October 9, 1865. The Pittsburgh and Lake 
Erie Railroad, now a part of the New York Central 
Lines, was opened into Pittsburgh in February, 1879. 
The Wabash Railway completed its entrance into the 
city on June 19, 1904. 

1 There is an interesting relief map of the portage railroad of the Pennsylvania 
Canal in the Carnegie Museum. 

1:493 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 



XIII 



In 1784 the town was laid out and settlers, among 
whom were many Scotch and Irish, came rapidly. The 
town was made the county seat in 1791, incorporated 
as a borough in 1794, the charter was revived in 1804, 




View of Old Pittsburgh, 1817 

and the borough was chartered as a city in 1816. The 
first charter granted to Pittsburgh in 1816 vested the 
more important powers of the city government in a 
common council of fifteen members and a select council 
of nine members. In 1887 a new charter was adopted 
giving to the mayor the power to appoint the heads of 
departments who were formerly elected by the councils. 
On March 7, 1901, a new charter, known as "The Rip- 
per," was adopted, under the operations of which the 

1:503 



HISTORICAL 

elected mayor (William J. Diehl) was removed from 
his office, and a new chief executive officer (A. M. 
Brown) appointed in his place by the governor, under 
the title of recorder. By an act of April 23, 1903, the 
title of mayor was restored, and under the changes then 
made the appointing power rests with the mayor, with 
the consent of the select council. The following is a 
list of the mayors of Pittsburgh : 



1816- 
1817- 
1825- 
1828- 
1830- 
1831- 
1832- 
1836- 
1839- 
1840- 
1841- 
1842- 

1845- 
1846- 

1847- 
1849- 
1850- 
1851- 

1853- 
1854- 
1856- 

1857- 
1860- 
1862- 
1864- 



817, Ebenezer Denny 
825, John Darragh 
828, John M. Snowden 

830, Magnus M. Murray 

831, Matthew B. Lowrie 

832, Magnus M. Murray 
836, Samuel Pettigrew 

839, Jonas R. McClintock 

840, William Little 

841, William W. Irwin 

842, James Thomson 

845, Alexander Hay 

846, William J. Howard 

847, William Kerr 

849, Gabriel Adams 

850, John Herron 

851, Joseph Barker 

853, John B. Guthrie 

854, Robert M. Riddle 

856, Ferdinand E. Volz 

857, William Bingham 
860, Henry A. Weaver 
862, George Wilson 
864, B. C. Sawyer 
866, James Lowry 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

1866-1868, W. S. McCarthy 

1868—1869, James Blackmore 

1869-1872, Jared M. Brush 

1872—1875, James Blackmore 

1875-1878, William C. McCarthy 

1878-1881, Robert Liddell 

1881-1884, Robert W. Lyon 

1884-1887, Andrew Fulton 

1887-1890, William McCallin 

1890-1893, Henry I. Gourley 

1893-1896, Bernard McKenna 

1896-1899, Henry P. Ford 

1899-1901, William J. Diehl 

1901, A. M. Brown (Title changed to Recorder) 

1901 — 1903, J. O. Brown (Recorder) 

1903, W. B. Hays (Recorder; served about one week 

under that title) 
1903—1906, W. B. Hays (Mayor again) 
1906—1909, George W. Guthrie 



A movement to consolidate the cities of Pittsburgh 
and Allegheny together with some adjacent boroughs, 
was begun in 1853-54. I^ failed entirely that year, but 
in 1867 Lawrence ville, Peebles, Collins, Liberty, Pitt, 
and Oakland, all lying between the two rivers, were 
annexed to Pittsburgh, and in 1872 there was a further 
annexation of a district embracing twenty-seven square 
miles south of the Monongahela River, while in 1906 
Allegheny was also annexed; and, as there was litiga- 
tion to test the validity of the consolidation, the Su- 
preme Court of the United States on December 6, 1907, 
declared in favor of the constitutionality of the act. 



HISTORICAL 



XIV 

The first national convention of the Republican party 
was held in Pittsburgh on February 22 and 23, 1856. 
While this gathering was an informal convention, it 
was made for the purpose of effecting a national organ- 
ization of the groups of Republicans which had grown 
up in the States where slavery was prohibited. Pitts- 
burgh was, therefore, in a broad sense, the place where 
the birth of the Republican party occurred. A digres- 
sion on this subject, in order that the record may be 
made clear, will probably not be unwelcome. 

In 1620, three months before the landing of the 
Mayflower at Provincetown, a Dutch vessel carried 
African slaves up the James River, and on the soil of 
Virginia there was planted a system of servitude which 
at last extended throughout the Colonies and flourished 
with increasing vigor in the South, until, in the War of 
the Rebellion, Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proc- 
lamation put an end forever to slavery in America. 
When the builders of our Government met in the Con- 
stitutional Convention of 1787, slavery was a problem 
which more than once threatened to wreck the scheme 
for an indissoluble union of the States. But it was 
compromised under a suggestion implied in the Consti- 
tution itself, that slavery should not be checked in the 

1:533 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

States in which it existed until 1808. In the meantime 
the entire labor system of the South was built upon 
African slavery, while at the North the horror of the 
public conscience grew against the degrading institu- 
tion from year to year. By 1854 the men in the free 
States who were opposed to slavery had begun to unite 
themselves by political bonds, and in the spring and 
summer of that year, groups of such men met in more or 
less informal conferences in Wisconsin, Michigan, New 
York, Maine, Massachusetts, Iowa, Ohio, and other 
northern States. But it was at Jackson, Michigan, 
where the men who were uniting their political fortunes 
to accomplish the destruction of slavery first assembled 
in a formal convention on July 6, 1854, nominated a 
full State ticket, and adopted a platform containing 
these declarations : 

Resolved : That, postponing and suspending all differences with 
regard to political economy or administrative policy, in view of 
the imminent danger that Kansas and Nebraska will be grasped 
by slavery, and a thousand miles of slave soil be thus interposed 
between the free States of the Atlantic and those of the Pacific, 
we will act cordially and faithfully in unison to avert and repeal 
this gigantic wrong and shame. 

Resolved : That in view of the necessity of battling for the first 
principles of Republican government, and against the schemes of 
an aristocracy, the most revolting and oppressive with which the 
earth was ever cursed or man debased, we will cooperate and be 
known as "Republicans" until the contest be terminated. 

On January 17, 1856, "the Republican Association 
of Washington, D. C," referring to the extension of 

[543 



HISTORICAL 

slavery into Kansas and Nebraska as "the deep dis- 
honor inflicted upon the age in which we live," issued a 
call, in accordance with what appeared to be the general 
desire of the Republican party, inviting the Republi- 
cans of the Union to meet in informal convention at 
Pittsburgh on February 22, 1856, for the purpose of 
perfecting the national organization, and providing for 
a national delegate convention of the Republican party, 
at some subsequent day, to nominate candidates for the 
presidency and vice-presidency, to be supported at the 
election in November, 1856. 

The Republican party met accordingly for the first 
time in a national convention in Pittsburgh on the date 
appointed, and was largely attended. Not only were 
all the free States represented, but there were also 
delegates from Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, 
Kentucky, and Missouri. John A. King was made 
temporary chairman, and Francis P. Blair permanent 
chairman. Speeches were made by Horace Greeley, 
Giddings and Gibson of Ohio, Codding and Lovejoy of 
Illinois, and others. Mr. Greeley sent a telegraphic re- 
port of the first day's proceedings to the New York 
"Tribune," stating that the convention had accom- 
plished much to cement former political differences and 
distinctions, and that the meeting at Pittsburgh had 
marked the inauguration of a national party, based 
upon the principle of freedom. He said that the gath- 
ering was very large and the enthusiasm unbounded; 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

that men were acting in the most perfect harmony and 
with a unity of feeling seldom known to political as- 
semblages of such magnitude; that the body was emi- 
nently Republican in principle and tendency; and that 
it combined much of character and talent, with integ- 
rity of purpose and devotion to the great principles 
which underlie our Government. He prophesied that 
the moral and political effect of this convention upon 
the country would be felt for the next quarter of a cen- 
tury. In its deliberations, he said that everything had 
been conducted with marked propriety and dignity. 

The platform adopted at Pittsburgh demanded the 
repeal of all laws allowing the introduction of slavery 
into free territories; promised support by all lawful 
measures to the Free-State men in Kansas in their re- 
sistance to the usurped authority of lawless invaders; 
and strongly urged the Republican party to resist and 
overthrow the existing national administration because 
it was identified with the progress of the slave power 
to national supremacy. 

On the evening of the second day, a mass meeting was 
held in aid of the emigration to Kansas. The president 
of the meeting was George N. Jackson, and D. D. 
Eaton was made secretary. Horace Greeley and others 
made addresses, and with great enthusiasm promises of 
aid to the bleeding young sister in the West were made. 

This record seems to show beyond question that the 
Republican party had its national birth at Pittsburgh 

[56] 



HISTORICAL 

on February 22, 1856, and that it came into being dedi- 
cated, as Horace Greeley described it at that moment, 
to the principle of human freedom. A later formal con- 
vention, as provided for at Pittsburgh, was held at 
Philadelphia on June 17, 1856, which nominated John 
C. Fremont, of California, for President, and William 
L. Dayton, of New Jersey, for Vice-President. This 
ticket polled a total popular vote of 1,341,264, but 
was beaten by the Democratic candidates, — James 
Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, for President, and John 
C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, for Vice-President, who 
polled 1,838,169 votes. This defeat of a good cause 
was probably a fortunate piece of adversity, for the 
men who opposed slavery were not yet strong enough 
to grapple the monster to its death as they did when 
Lincoln was nominated four years later. It was the 
high mission of the party in 1856 and i860 to stand 
against the extension of slavery, and in 1864 against 
all slavery as well as against the destruction of this 
Union; and in 1868, against those who wished to nul- 
lify the results of the war. Its later mission has been 
full of usefulness and honor. 



XV 

Among the eminent men who visited Pittsburgh in by- 
gone days we find record of the following : 

[57 3 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

1817, President Monroe 
1825, General Lafayette 
1833, Daniel Webster 
1842, Charles Dickens 

1848, Henry Clay 

1849, President Taylor and Governor Johnston 
1852, Louis Kossuth 

i860, Prince of Wales (now King Edward VII) 
1861, President Lincoln 

1866, President Johnson, Admiral Farragut, General Grant, 
and Secretaries Seward and Welles 



In 1845 (April 10th), a great fire destroyed about 
one third of the total area of the city, including most 
of the large business houses and factories, the bridge 
over the Monongahela River, the large hotel known as 
the Monongahela House, and several churches, in all 
about eleven hundred buildings. The Legislature 
appropriated $50,000 for the relief of the sufferers. 

In 1889, the great flood at Johnstown, accompanied 
by a frightful loss of life and destruction of property, 
touched the common heart of humanity all over the 
world. The closeness of Johnstown geographically 
made the sorrow at Pittsburgh most poignant and pro- 
found. In a few hours almost the whole population 
had brought its offerings for the stricken community, 
and besides clothing, provisions, and every conceivable 
thing necessary for relief and comfort, the people of 
Pittsburgh contributed $250,000 to restore so far as 
possible the material portion of the loss. 



HISTORICAL 

In the autumn of 1908 a series of imposing celebra- 
tions was held to commemorate the one hundred and 
fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Pittsburgh. 



XVI 

In 1877, the municipal government being, in its per- 
sonnel, at the moment, incompetent to preserve the 
fundamental principles on which it was established, 
permitted a strike of railroad employees to grow without 
restriction as to the observance of law and order until 
it became an insurrection. Four million dollars' worth 
of property was destroyed by riot and incendiarism in a 
few hours. When at last outraged authority was prop- 
erly shifted from the supine city chieftains to the in- 
domitable State itself, it became necessary, before order 
could be restored, for troops to fire, with a sacrifice of 
human life. 

For some months preceding the riots at Pittsburgh 
disturbances among the railroad employees, especially 
the engineers and brakemen of freight-trains, had been 
frequent on railroads west and east of this city. These 
disturbances arose mainly from resistance to reductions 
in the rates of wages, made or proposed by the executive 
officers of the various railroads, and also from objec- 
tions of train crews to regulations governing the trans- 
portation system. 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

The Pennsylvania Railroad Company, some time 
after the panic of 1873, reduced the wages of its em- 
ployees ten per cent., and, on account of the general 
decline in business, made another reduction of ten per 
cent, to take effect on June 1, 1877; these reductions to 
apply to all employees from the president of the com- 
pany down. The reductions affected the roads known 
as the Pennsylvania Lines west of Pittsburgh, as well 
as the Pennsylvania Railroad, and similar alterations 
were also made on the New York Central and the Bal- 
timore & Ohio Railroads. The changed conditions 
caused a great deal of dissatisfaction among the train- 
men, but a committee was appointed by them, which 
held a conference with Mr. Thomas A. Scott, President 
of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and agreed to 
the reduction, reporting its conclusions to the trainmen. 

On July 16th an order was issued by the railroad 
company that thirty-six freight-cars, instead of eigh- 
teen, as before, were to be made up as a train, without 
increase in the number of the crew, and with a locomo- 
tive at the end to act as a pusher, assisting the one at 
the front, making what is technically called "a double 
header." The train employees looked upon this order 
as doubling their work under the decreased pay of June 
1st, and in its effect virtually tending to the discharge 
of many men then employed in the running of freight- 
trains. The strike which followed does not seem to 
have been seriously organized, but was rather a sudden 

[60] 



HISTORICAL 

conclusion arrived at on the impulse of the moment, 
and was probably strengthened by a wave of discontent 
which was sweeping over the roads to the east and west, 
as well as by an undercurrent of hostility toward the 
railroads exhibited by some of the newspapers. As far 
back as July 23, 1876, a Pittsburgh paper, in publish- 
ing an article headed "Railroad Vultures," had said: 
"Railroad officials are commencing to understand that 
the people of Pittsburgh will be patient no longer; that 
this community is being aroused into action, and that 
presently the torrent of indignation will give place to 
condign retribution" ; and in another paragraph the 
same paper had said: "We desire to impress upon the 
minds of the community that these vultures are con- 
stantly preying upon the wealth and resources of the 
country; they are a class, as it were, of money jugglers 
intent only on practising their trickery for self aggran- 
dizement, and that, consequently, their greed leads 
them into all known ways and byways of fraud, schem- 
ing, and speculating, to accomplish the amassing of 
princely fortunes." These intemperate utterances 
were the first seeds of popular sedition. 

It was not until 8.30 o'clock on the morning of the 
19th that the real trouble began. Two freight-trains 
were to start at 8.40, but ten minutes before that the 
crews sent word that they would not take the trains out. 
Two yard crews were then asked to take their places, 
but they refused to do so. The trains were not taken 

[61] 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

out, and the crews of all the trains that came in, as the)^ 
arrived, joined the strikers. As the day wore on the 
men gradually congregated at the roundhouse of the 
road at Twenty-eighth Street, but did not attempt or 
threaten any violence. The news of the strike had 
spread through the two cities, and large numbers of the 
more turbulent class of the population, together with 
many workmen from the factories who sympathized 
with the strikers, hastened to Twenty-eighth Street, and 
there was soon gathered a formidable mob in which the 
few striking railroad employees were an insignificant 
quantity. 

When the railroad officials found their tracks and 
roundhouse in the possession of a mob which defied 
them, they called upon the mayor of the city for 
protection, to which Mayor McCarthy promptly re- 
sponded, going in person with a detail of officers to the 
scene of the trouble. When the police arrived on the 
ground they found an excited assemblage of people 
who refused to listen to their orders to disperse, and the 
mayor made no serious effort to enforce his authority 
effectually. There was no collision, however, until a 
man who had refused to join the strikers attempted to 
couple some cars, when he was assaulted. An officer of 
the road who undertook to turn a switch, was also as- 
saulted by one of the mob, who was arrested by the 
police. His comrades began throwing stones, but the 
police maintained their hold of their prisoner, and con- 

1:613 



HISTORICAL 

veyed him to the jail. A crowd then gathered in front 
of the police station and made threats of rescuing their 
comrade, but no overt act was committed. The mob, 
which had by this tim.e become greatly enraged, was 
really not composed of railroad employees, who had 
contemplated no such result of their strike, and now 
generally deplored the unfortunate turn which the 
affair had taken. It was for the most part composed of 
the worst element of the population, who, without any 
grievance of their own, real or imagined, had gathered 
together from the very force of their vicious inclina- 
tions and the active hope of plunder. 

The strikers held a meeting that evening, at which 
they demanded that the ten per cent, should be re- 
stored, and the running of double headers abolished. 
In the meantime, the railroad authorities, perceiving the 
inefficiency of the local police powers, and alarmed at 
the still-increasing mob and the vicious spirit which it 
displayed, invoked the aid of the sheriff of the county. 
At midnight Sheriff Fife came to Twenty-eighth Street 
with a hastily summoned posse, a part of which de- 
serted him before he reached the scene of action, and 
ordered the rioters to disperse, which they, with hoots 
and jeers, defiantly refused to do. The sheriff then 
sought aid from the military, and General A. L. Pear- 
son issued an order to the Eighteenth and Nineteenth 
regiments of the National Guards of Pennsylvania, 
with headquarters at Pittsburgh, to assemble at half 

1:633 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

past six the next morning, armed and equipped for 
duty. Sheriff Fife also telegraphed to the State au- 
thorities at Harrisburg, stating that he was unable to 
quell the riot, and asking that General Pearson be in- 
structed to do this with his force; and Adjutant General 
Latta issued the orders accordingly. General Pearson 
marched his forces to the Union Depot and placed them 
in position in the yard and on the hillside above it. The 
mob was not, however, deterred by this action, as the 
troops were supposed to be more or less in sympathy 
with the strikers, and were expected to be disinclined to 
fire upon their fellow citizens if they should be ordered 
to do so. The employment of local troops at this mo- 
ment constituted a grave mistake in the management 
of the riot. 

The governor had, however, been telegraphed to, 
and had ordered General Brinton's division of troops 
to leave Philadelphia for Pittsburgh. This became 
known to the mob, which was still increasing in numbers 
and turbulence, and the calling of troops from the east 
drove them to fury. The feeling had spread to the 
workingmen in the factories on the South Side, where 
a public meeting was held, and demagogical speeches 
made, upholding the action of the strikers; and five 
hundred men came thence in a body and joined the 
crowd. 

At this critical moment the mob received an endorse- 
ment that not only greatly encouraged it, but incited it 

C64] 



HISTORICAL 

to extreme violence. A local newspaper, on Friday, the 
20th, in the course of an editorial headed "The Talk of 
the Desperate," which formulated what was assumed 
as the expression of a workingman, used this language : 

This may be the great civil war in this country between labor 
and capital that is bound to come. . . . The workingmen every- 
where are in fullest sympathy with the strikers, and only waiting 
to see whether they are in earnest enough to fight for their rights. 
They would all join and help them the moment an actual conflict 
took place. . . . The governor, with his proclamation, may call 
and call, but the laboring people, who mostly constitute the mili- 
tia, won't take up arms to put down their brethren. Will capital 
then rely on the United States Army *? Pshaw ! Its ten to fifteen 
thousand available men would be swept from our path like leaves 
m a whirlwind. The workingmen of this country can capture and 
hold it, if they will only stick together, and it looks as though they 
were going to do so this time. Of course, you say that capital will 
have some supporters. Many of the unemployed will be glad to 
get work as soldiers, or extra policemen; the farmers, too, might 
turn out to preserve your law and order; but the working army 
would have the most men and the best men. The war might be 
bloody but the right would prevail. Men like Tom Scott, Frank 
Thomson— yes, and William Thaw— who have got rich swindling 
the stockholders of railroads, so that they cannot pay honest labor 
living rates, we would hang to the nearest tree. 

Although the paper in a later edition suppressed that 
part of the editorial, and the other papers of the city 
reframed from any editorials that might increase the 
excitement, yet the mischief had been done, the unfor- 
tunate words had been widely read, and the more intel- 
ligently vicious of the rioters proceeded to make the 
most of them. 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

The eastern troops left Philadelphia on Friday night 
and arrived at the Union Depot on Saturday afternoon, 
tired and hungry. After a scant and hasty lunch they 
were placed out along the tracks to the roundhouse 
where the great bulk of the mob was assembled. In 
order to secure and protect the building and tracks it 
was necessary that the crowd should be forced back. 
When the troops undertook this movement some stones 
were thrown and a few soldiers were hit. Then one of 
the subordinate officers gave an order to fire, and about 
twenty persons were killed and thirty wounded, three 
of whom were children. 

When the rioters beheld their associates attacked, 
their rage passed all control, and the troops were closed 
in upon and driven into the roundhouse. Encouraged 
by this retreat, the mob took steps to burn them out. 
Many cars loaded with whisky and petroleum were set 
on fire and sent down the track against the building, 
and fire was opened on it with a cannon which the 
crowd had seized from a local armory. General Brinton 
came personally to one of the windows of the round- 
house and appealed to the mob to desist, warning them 
that if they did not he must and would fire. The rioters 
paid no attention to his appeal, but continued their as- 
saults, whereupon General Brinton gave orders to his 
men to fire at those who were handling the cannon, and 
several of them were killed and wounded. Incendiar- 
ism, having been inaugurated, went on through the 

[66;] 



HISTORICAL 

night, whole trains being robbed and then burned. The 
troops held their position until Sunday morning, and 
then retreated out Penn Avenue to Sharpsburg, where 
they went into camp. 

During Saturday night and Sunday morning the mob 
seemed to have taken possession of the city. They 
broke open several armories and gun stores, and sup- 
plied themselves with arms and ammunition. The 
banks were threatened, and the city seemed about to 
be pillaged, the business part of the city being filled 
with bands of rioters who uttered threats of violence 
and murder. On Sunday morning the roundhouse and 
all the locomotives which it contained were destroyed 
by fire. The Union Depot, the grain elevator, the 
Adams Express building, and the Pan Handle depot 
were also set on fire and consumed. The firemen who 
hastened to the scene and attempted to extinguish the 
flames were met by armed men and driven back. At 
half past twelve on Sunday morning a committee ap- 
pointed by a citizens' meeting tried to open a consulta- 
tion with the mob, but were promptly driven away. 
The committee found that they were not dealing with 
dissatisfied railroad employees but with a mob of the 
worst of the city's population, there being neither or- 
ganization nor leader, but each man or party of men 
doing what the frenzy of the moment suggested. When 
it seemed as if the whole city was to be destroyed, some 
of the original strikers were persuaded to attend a meet- 

[673 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

ing of the citizens at four o'clock and arrange to aid in 
suppressing the incendiarism, and they did this with 
such a good spirit as showed that the railroad strikers 
were not a part of the mob and did not countenance its 
violence. At this meeting the mayor was authorized to 
enroll five hundred police, but the accounts of the day 
show that the ranks filled up slowly. The state of ter- 
ror continued through all of Sunday night, and on 
Monday morning the mob was still in an unorganized 
control. 

Throughout the thirty-six hours from Saturday 
night until Monday morning a most unusual state of 
public mind developed here and there which seemed 
like a moral epidemic. There was almost a wholesale 
appropriation of goods from the burning cars by men 
and even women who would at other times have shud- 
dered at the idea of robbery; and after the riot was sup- 
pressed goods were for some time voluntarily returned 
by persons who had taken them unreflectingly, having 
at length recovered their moral perceptions, which had 
seemingly been clouded by the vicious influence of the 
mob. 

On Monday morning, however, the uprooted law 
seemed to be recovering a portion of its dissipated 
majesty. During the night posters had been placed 
conspicuously throughout the city, on which was 
printed the law under which the citizens of Allegheny 
County were liable for all the damage done by the mob 

[68] 



HISTORICAL 

or arising from its actions. At eleven o'clock in the 
morning, a meeting of citizens was called at the Cham- 
ber of Commerce, to form a Committee of Public Safety 
to take charge of the situation, as the city authorities, 
the sheriff, and the military seemed powerless to control 
it. This committee presented the following address to 
the public : 

The Committee of Public Safety, appointed at the meeting of 
citizens held at the Chamber of Commerce July 23d, deeming that 
the allaying of excitement is the first step toward restoring order, 
would urge upon all citizens disposed to aid therein the necessity 
of pursuing their usual avocation, and keeping all their employees 
at work, and would, therefore, request that full compliance be ac- 
corded to this demand of the committee. The committee are im- 
pressed with the belief that the police force now being organized 
will be able to arrest and disperse all riotous assemblages, and that 
much of the danger of destruction to property has passed, and that 
an entire restoration of order will be established. The committee 
believe that the mass of industrious workmen of the city are on 
the side of law and order, and a number of the so-called strikers 
are already in the ranks of the defenders of the city, and it is quite 
probable that any further demonstration will proceed from thieves 
and similar classes of population, with whom our working classes 
have no affiliation and will not be found among them. 

It is to this end that the committee request that all classes of 
business be prosecuted as usual, and our citizens refrain from con- 
gregating in the streets in crowds, so that the police of the city 
may not be confused in their effort to arrest rioters, and the mili- 
tary be not restrained from prompt action, if necessary, from fear 
of injuring the innocent. 

While the rioters had by this time been somewhat 
restrained by the resolute action of the committee, yet 

C69: 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

they were, although dispersed as a body, holding meet- 
ings and still breathing sullen threats of further out- 
rage and murder. The strike had spread to the Pitts- 
burgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railway, and its trains 
were for two or three days virtually stopped; in other 
sections of the country the railroad troubles were in- 
creasing, and the committee thought best to call Major- 
General Joseph Brown and Colonel P. N. Guthrie, of 
the Eighteenth National Guards, into consultation. 
Under their advice a camp of the military was formed 
at East Liberty, to be held in readiness for any further 
outbreak. Mayor McCarthy, at last inspirited by the 
determined men who urged him to his duty, enrolled 
five hundred extra police, and issued a proclamation in 
which he said : 

I have determined that peace, order, and quiet shall be restored 
to the community, and to this end call upon all good citizens to 
come forward at once to the old Cit}' Hall and unite with the 
police and military now organizing. I call upon all to continue 
quietly at their several places of business and refrain from partici- 
pating in excited assemblages. 

A proclamation had also been issued by Governor 
Hartranf t, and he had come to Pittsburgh to address the 
rioters, and subsequently two or three thousand troops 
were ordered by him to Pittsburgh, and were encamped 
near East Liberty for several days. 

Under these vigorous measures quiet was in a few 

Don 



HISTORICAL 

days restored, although the Committee of Public Safety 
continued to hold sessions and to take steps not only to 
prevent any further demonstrations, but to arrest and 
bring to punishment a number of the prominent rioters. 

Claims for losses in the riot were made on Allegheny 
County in the sum of $4,100,000, which the commis- 
sioners settled for $2,772,349.53. Of this sum $i,6oo,- 
000 was paid to the Pennsylvania Railroad, whose 
claim for $2,3 1 2,000 was settled for that sum. In addi- 
tion to the buildings already specified as burned, there 
were 1,383 freight-cars, 104 locomotives, and 66 pas- 
senger coaches destroyed by fire. Twenty-five persons 
in all were killed. 

The lesson was worth all it cost, and anarchy has 
never dared to raise its head in the corporation limits 
since that time. 

XVII 

The Homestead strike and riot of 1892 is another inci- 
dent of false leadership in industrial life which must be 
chronicled here. 

For many years the Carnegie Steel Company, whose 
principal works were situated at Homestead, just 
outside the present boundaries of the city, had em- 
ployed a large number of skilled workmen who be- 
longed to the Amalgamated Association of Iron and 
Steel Workers, and had contracted for their employ- 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

ment with the officers of that Association. On July i, 
1889, a three years' contract was made which was to 
terminate at the end of June, 1892. The workmen 
were paid by the ton, the amount they received depend- 
ing on the selling price of steel billets of a specified size 
which they produced. If the price of these billets ad- 
vanced, the wages they received per ton advanced 
proportionately. If the price declined, their wages also 
declined to a certain point, called a minimum, but a 
decline in the selling price below this minimum caused 
no reduction in wages. The minimum was fixed in the 
contract at $25.00 per ton. At the date the contract 
was made the market price of the billets was $26.50 
per ton. 

As the time drew near for the contract to expire, the 
Carnegie Company, through its chairman, Mr, Henry 
C. Frick, submitted to the workmen belonging to the 
Association a proposition as the basis of a new contract. 
The three most important features of the proposed con- 
tract were, first, a reduction in the minimum of the 
scale for billets from $25.00 to $22.00 ; second, a change 
in the expiration of the date of the scale from June 30th 
to December 31st; third, a reduction of tonnage rates 
at those furnaces and mills in which, by reason of the 
introduction of improved machinery, the earnings of 
the workmen had been increased far beyond the liberal 
calculation of their employers. At those places where 
no such improvements had been made, no reduction in 

1:723 



HISTORICAL 

tonnage rates was proposed. The company gave as a 
reason for reducing the minimum that the market price 
of steel had gone down below $25.00 per ton, and that 
it was unfair for the workmen to have the benefits of a 
rise in the market above $25.00, and share none of the 
losses of the company when the market price fell below 
that figure. Indeed, the company contended that there 
ought to be no minimum as there was no maximum 
under the sliding scale. The workmen insisted that 
there ought to be a minimum to protect them against 
unfair dealing between the company and its buyers, as 
they had no voice or authority in selling the products 
of their labor. 

The reason for changing the time for closing the con- 
tract was that the company's business was less active 
at the end of the calendar year than in midsummer, and 
that it was easier to complete new arrangements for em- 
ployment at that time. Another reason was that the 
company often made sales for an entire year, and con- 
sequently contracts for labor could be more safely made 
if they began and ended at times corresponding with 
contracts made with their customers. The workmen 
opposed this change in the duration of the contract on 
the ground that in midwinter they would be less able 
to resist any disposition on the part of the company to 
cut down their wages, and that in the event of a strike, 
it would be more difficult to maintain their situation 
than it would be in summer. They claimed, therefore, 

l73l 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

that the change in time would be a serious disadvantage 
to them in negotiating with their employers. They 
proposed to the company, as a counter proposition, that 
the contract should end the last of June, as had for- 
merly been the case, and that if any change was to be 
demanded, three months' notice must be given them, 
and that, if this was not done, the contract, which was to 
run for three years, should continue for a year longer; 
in other words, from June 30, 189^, until June 30, 
1896. This suggestion was rejected by the company. 
But the company then proposed to make the minimum 
$23.00 per ton for steel billets, and the Association, 
through its committee, named a price of $24.00, refus- 
ing to concede any more. 

While these negotiations were pending, the superin- 
tendent of the Homestead Steel Works had concluded 
contracts with all the employees, except three hundred 
and twenty-five of the highest skill, who were employed 
in three of the twelve departments. All the others 
were to be paid on the former basis of remuneration 
without any reduction whatever. Of the three hundred 
and twenty-five high-priced men with whom contracts 
had not been made, two hundred and eighty would have 
been affected by the tonnage reductions and about forty- 
five more by the tonnage reductions and scale minimum. 

Under the proposed readjustments those who re- 
ceived the low grades of compensation and the common 
laborers would not have been touched in their earnings. 

1:743 



HISTORICAL 

The actual controversy was thus narrowed down to a 
small number of men, less than ten per cent, of those 
employed at Homestead. 

During the remainder of the month of June other 
steps were taken to effect an agreement, but the rela- 
tions between the officers of the company and the work- 
men, instead of improving, grew worse. On the 28th 
the company began to close the different departments, 
and on the last day of the month work in all of them 
ceased. On July 1st the striking workmen congre- 
gated about the gates, stopped the foremen and em- 
ployees who came to work, and persuaded them to go 
away. The watchmen of the company were turned 
away from the works; guards were placed at all the 
entrances, the river, streets and roads entering the 
town were patrolled by strikers, and a rigid surveil- 
lance was exercised over those who entered the town 
or approached the plant. When the sheriff came on 
July 4th and attempted to put deputies of his own 
selection in possession of the works, to guard them for 
the company, he was opposed by a counter force, the 
striking workmen proposing to place guards of their 
own and give indemnity for the safety of the property; 
but this the sheriff declined because it would enable the 
strikers to keep any new non-union men from taking 
their places. On July 5th, when the sheriff sent twelve 
deputies to take possession of the works, they were 
driven away. 

1:75] 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

In the meantime Mr. Frick had begun negotiations 
as early as June 20th with Robert A. Pinkerton, of New 
York, for the employment of three hundred watchmen 
to be placed in the works at Homestead. They were 
brought from Ashtabula to Youngstown by rail, thence 
to Pittsburgh by river. On the evening of July 5'th, 
Captain Rodgers' two boats, with Deputy Sheriff Gray, 
Superintendent Potter, of the Homestead works, and 
some of his assistants, on board, dropped down the river 
with two barges in tow, until they met the Pinkerton 
men. When the boat, with the barges in tow, ap- 
proached Homestead in the early morning of the 6th, 
they were discovered by a small steamer used by the 
strikers as a patrol, and the alarm was given. A short 
war of words was followed by firing on each side, which 
resulted ultimately in the death of three of the Pinker- 
tons and seven of the workmen, and the wounding of 
many on each side. After a brief fusillade those on 
shore fled in various directions, and the Pinkerton men 
retreated into their barges. About five o'clock in the 
afternoon the Pinkertons surrendered, being allowed to 
take out their clothing, but their arms and supplies fell 
into the possession of the Homestead people. The 
barges were immediately set on fire and burned, and in 
their burning the pump-house belonging to the Carne- 
gie Company was also destroyed. The Pinkerton men, 
now being practically prisoners of war, were marched 
up-town to the skating-rink for temporary imprison- 

[763 



HISTORICAL 

ment. The sheriff was notified, and he came down that 
night and took the prisoners away. He then informed 
the governor of Pennsylvania of what had occurred, 
and called upon him for troops to enforce the law and 
restore public order. Governor Pattison made a prompt 
response to this appeal, as his duty under the law re- 
quired him to do. On the morning of the 12th the sol- 
diers of the State militia entered Homestead. As soon 
as they arrived the Carnegie Company took possession 
of its works, and began to make preparations to resume 
work with non-union men. It was difficult to secure 
employees, and several months passed away before the 
company was able to obtain all the men it desired. At 
first the new employees were fed and housed within the 
enclosure, and this plan continued for several weeks 
until their number had increased to such a degree that 
they felt secure in going outside for their meals with 
the protection afforded by the sheriff's deputies. 

The company made an effort to employ their old 
workmen and fixed a time for receiving applications 
for employment from them. When the time had ex- 
pired, however, which was on July 21st, not one partici- 
pant in the strike had returned. At a later period many of 
the old employees returned to work. By the close of July, 
nearly a thousand men were at work at Homestead. On 
July 23d Mr. Frick was shot in his office by Alexander 
Berkman, an anarchist, who was not, and never had 
been, an employee. The chairman recovered from his 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

wounds and his assailant was sent to the penitentiary. 

The last of the troops were not withdrawn until 
October 13th. At that time the mill was in full opera- 
tion with non-union men. 

Though the strike was ended in October, its formal 
termination by the Amalgamated Association was not 
declared until November 20th, when the disposition of 
the strikers to return to work was very general. Assum- 
ing that the strike lasted nearly five months, as the 
monthly pay-roll of the mill was about $250,000, the 
loss to the striking employees for that period was not 
far from $1,250,000. No estimate of the loss sustained 
by the company has been published. The cost to the 
State in sending and maintaining the National Guard 
at Homestead was $440,256.31. 



1:78:] 



INDUSTRIAL 



Pittsburgh has thus passed through many battles, 
trials, afflictions, and adversities, and has grown in the 
strength of giants until it now embraces in the limits of 
the county a population rapidly approaching one mil- 
lion. This seems a proper moment, therefore, turning 
away from the romantic perspective of history, to at- 
tempt a brief description of Pittsburgh as we see her 
to-day. In order to give value to the record it will be 
necessary to employ certain statistics, but the effort will 
be to make these figures as little wearisome as possible. 
The present population after the annexation of Alle- 
gheny (December 6, 1907) is estimated at 550,000, and 
if we were to add McKeesport with its tube mills, 
Homestead with its Carnegie works, and East Pitts- 
burgh with its Westinghouse plants, all of which lie 
just outside of the present corporate limits, the popula- 
tion would be 700,000. In 1900 we can give the popu- 



INDUSTRIAL 

lation definitely (omitting Allegheny) at 321,616, 
of whom 85,032 were foreign born and 17,040 were 
negroes. Of these foreign born 21,222 were natives of 
Germany, 18,620 of Ireland, 8,902 of England, 6,243 
of Russian Poland, 5,709 of Italy, 4,107 of Russia, 
3,553 of Austria, 3,515 of German Poland, 2,539 of 
Wales, 2,264 of Scotland, 2,124 of Hungary, 1,072 of 
Sweden, 1,025 of Austrian Poland, and 154 Chinese. 



II 

It has already been said that the city is a gateway 
from the East to the West and South, and as such it is 
the center of a vast railway system. The principal 
railroads serving Pittsburgh are the Pennsylvania, Bal- 
timore and Ohio, the New York Central Lines, and the 
Wabash System, and she has also a numerous fleet of 
boats plying the three rivers. Coal is brought to the 
city by boats as well as by rail, and great fleets of barges 
carry it and other heavy freight down the Ohio. A ship 
canal for the establishment of water transportation be- 
tween Pittsburgh and Lake Erie (127.5 miles) has 
been projected. The railroads carry through Pitts- 
burgh over eight per cent, of all the railroad traffic of 
the United States; and have a particularly heavy ton- 
nage of coal, coke, and iron and steel products ; while a 
large proportion of the iron ore that is produced in the 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

Lake Superior region is brought here to supply Pitts- 
burgh manufactures. The total railway and river ton- 
nage is greater than that of any other city in the world, 
amounting in 1906 to 122,000,000 tons, of which about 
12,000,000 tons were carried on boats down the Ohio. 
Her tonnage is equal to one half the combined tonnage 
of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The following table 
will be very interesting as showing the extraordinary 
fact that the tonnage of Pittsburgh exceeds the com- 
bined tonnage of the five other greatest cities in the 
world (1902) : 

Pittsburgh 86,636,680 tons 

London 17,564, 1 10 tons 

New York 17,398,000 " 

Antwerp 16,721,000 " 

Hamburg 15,853,490 " 

Liverpool 13,157,720 " 

Total 80,694,320 " 

Pittsburgh's excess 5,942,360 " 

Pittsburgh has freight yards with a total capacity for 
more than 6o,000 cars. Its harbor has a total length on 
the three rivers of twenty-eight miles, with an average 
width of about one thousand feet, and has been deep- 
ened by the Davis Island Dam (1889) and by dredg- 
ing. Slack water navigation has been secured on the 
Allegheny River by locks and dams at an expense of 
more than a million and a quarter dollars. The Monon- 

[82;] 



INDUSTRIAL 

gahela River from Pittsburgh to the West Virginia 
State line (91.5 miles) was improved by a private 
company in 1836, which built seven locks and dams. 
This property was condemned and bought by the 
United States Government in 1897 for $3,761,615, 
and the Government is planning to rebuild and enlarge 
these works. 

Pittsburgh is surrounded by the most productive 
coal-fields in the country. The region is also rich in 
petroleum and natural gas, and although the petroleum 
in the immediate vicinity has been nearly exhausted, 
it is still obtained through pipes from the neighboring 
regions. The first petroleum pipe line reached Pitts- 
burgh in 1875. 

Pittsburgh is also a port of entry, and for the year 
ending December, 1907, the value of its imports 
amounted to $2,416,367. 

In 1806 the manufacture of iron was begun, and by 
1825 this had become the leading industry. Among 
the earlier prominent iron industries was the Kensing- 
ton Iron Works, of which Samuel Church (born Febru- 
ary 5, 1800; died December 7, 1857) , whose family has 
been resident in Pittsburgh from 1822 to the present 
day, was the leading partner. In the manufacture of 
iron and steel products Pittsburgh ranks first among the 
cities of the United States, their value in 1905 amount- 
ing to $92,939,860, or 53.3 per cent, of the total of the 
whole country. Several towns in the near neighbor- 

C83] 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

hood are also extensively engaged in the same industry, 
and in 1902 Allegheny County produced about 24 per 
cent, of the pig iron; nearly 34 per cent, of the Besse- 
mer steel ; 44 per cent, of the open hearth steel ; 53 per 
cent, of the crucible steel; 24 per cent, of the steel 
rails, and 59 per cent, of the structural shapes that were 
made that year in the United States. In 1905 the value 
of Pittsburgh's foundry and machine-shop products 
amounted to $9,631,514; of the product of steam 
railroad repair shops, $3,726,990; of malt liquors, 
$3,166,829; of slaughtering and meat-packing prod- 
ucts, $2,732,027; of cigars and cigarettes, $2,297,228; 
of glass, $2,130,540; and of tin and terne plate, 
$1,645,570. Electrical machinery, apparatus, and sup- 
plies were manufactured largely in the city, to a value 
in 1905 of $1,796,557. The Heinz Company has its 
main pickle plant in Pittsburgh, the largest establish- 
ment of its kind in the world. 

Pittsburgh's first glass works was built in 1797 by 
James O'Hara. In 1900, and for a long period pre- 
ceding, the town ranked first among American cities in 
the manufacture of glass, but in 1905 it was outranked 
in this industry by Muncie, Indiana, Millville, New 
Jersey, and Washington, Pennsylvania; but in the dis- 
trict outside of the limits of Pittsburgh much glass is 
manufactured, so that the Pittsburgh glass district is 
still the greatest in the country. In Pittsburgh or its 
immediate vicinity the more important plants of the 

[84] 



INDUSTRIAL 

United States Steel Corporation are located, including 
the Carnegie Works at Homestead. Just outside the 
limits also are the plants of the Westinghouse Com- 
pany for the manufacture of electrical apparatus, of 
air-brakes which George Westinghouse invented in 
1868, and of devices for railway signals which he also 
invented. 

Alexander Johnston Cassatt, one of the greatest of 
the Pennsylvania Railroad presidents, and perhaps the 
most far-seeing and resourceful of all our captains of 
industry of the present generation, was born here. 
James McCrea, the present wise and conservative 
president of that road, lived here for twenty years. 
Andrew Carnegie, Henry Phipps, and Henry C. Frick 
were the strongest personalities who grew up with the 
Carnegie steel interests. George Westinghouse, whose 
inventive genius, as shown in his safety appliances, has 
so greatly reduced the hazards of railway travel and 
of operation, has long been one of the industrial and 
social pillars of the community. John A. Brashear, 
astronomer and educator, the maker of delicate instru- 
ments, is a well-beloved citizen. 

Pittsburgh ranks high as a banking center. She is the 
second city in the United States in banking capital and 
surplus, and leads all American cities in proportion of 
capital and surplus to gross deposits, with 47.1 per 
cent., while Philadelphia ranks second with 26 per cent. 
In 1906, there were one hundred and seventy-nine 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

banks and trust companies in the Pittsburgh district 
with a combined capital of $72,058,402, and a surplus 
of $87,044,622. The gross deposits were $395,379,783, 
while the total resources amounted to $593,392,069. 
Pittsburgh, with clearing-house exchanges amounting 
to $2,640,847,046, ranks sixth among the cities of the 
United States, being exceeded by the following cities 
in the order named : New York, Chicago, Boston, Phila- 
delphia, and St. Louis, and often on a given day ex- 
ceeds those of St. Louis. 



ni 

The tax valuation of Pittsburgh property is $609,- 
632,427. She mines one quarter of the bituminous coal 
of the United States. With an invested capital of $64 1 ,- 
000,000, she has 3,029 mills and factories with an annual 
product worth $551,000,000, and 250,000 employees 
on a pay-roll of about $ 1 ,000,000 a day, or $350,000,000 
a year. Her electric street-railway system multiplies 
itself through her streets for four hundred and ninety- 
two miles. Natural-gas fuel is conveyed into her mills 
and houses through one thousand miles of iron pipe. 
Her output of coke makes one train ten miles long 
every day throughout the year. Seven hundred pas- 
senger trains and ten thousand loaded freight cars run 
to and from her terminals every day. Nowhere else in 
the world is there so large a Bessemer-steel plant, cruci- 

1:86] 



INDUSTRIAL 

ble-steel plant, plate-glass plant, chimney-glass plant, 
table-glass plant, air-brake plant, steel-rail plant, cork 
works, tube works, or steel freight-car works. Her 
armor sheaths our battle-ships, as well as those of Rus- 
sia and Japan. She equips the navies of the world with 
projectiles and range-finders. Her bridges span the 
rivers of India, China, Egypt, and the Argentine Re- 
public; and her locomotives, rails, and bridges are used 
on the Siberian Railroad. She builds electric railways 
for Great Britain and Brazil, and telescopes for Ger- 
many and Denmark. Indeed, she distributes her varied 
manufactures into the channels of trade all over the 
earth. 



C87] 



INTELLECTUAL 

I 

But while these stupendous industries have given 
Pittsburgh her wealth, population, supremacy, and 
power, commercial materialism is not the ultima thule 
of her people. 

Travelers who come to Pittsburgh, forgetting the 
smoke which often dims the blue splendor of its skies, 
are struck with the picturesque situation of the town, 
for they find rolling plateaus, wide rivers, and narrow 
valleys dropping down from high hills or precipitous 
bluffs throughout the whole district over which the city 
extends. Yet the surpassing beauty of nature is not 
more impressive to the thinking stranger than the work 
of man who has created and dominates a vast industrial 
system. The manufactories extend for miles along the 
banks of all three rivers. Red fires rise heavenward 
from gigantic forges where iron is being fused into 
wealth. The business section of the city is wedged in 
by the rivers, its streets are swarming with people, and 
there is a myriad of retail houses, wholesale houses. 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

banks, tall office buildings, hotels, theaters, and railway 
terminals ; but right where these stop the residence sec- 
tion begins like another city of happy homes — an im- 
mense garden of verdant trees and flowering lawns 
divided off by beautiful avenues, where some houses 
rise which in Europe would be called castles and pal- 
aces, with scarce a fence between to mark the land lines, 
giving an aspect almost of a park rather than of a city. 
There are many miles of asphalt streets set off with 
grass plots. On the rolling hills above the Monon- 
gahela River is Schenley Park (about four hundred and 
forty acres) with beautiful drives, winding bridle paths, 
and shady walks through narrow valleys and over 
small streams. Above the Allegheny River is High- 
land Park (about two hundred and ninety acres) , con- 
taining a placid lake and commanding fine views from 
the summits of its great hills. It also contains a very 
interesting zoological garden. Close to Schenley Park 
are Homewood and Calvary Cemeteries and near High- 
land Park is Allegheny Cemetery, where the dead sleep 
amidst drooping willows and shading elms. Connect- 
ing the two parks and leading to them from the down- 
town section is a system of wide boulevards about 
twenty miles in length. On the North Side (once Alle- 
gheny) is Riverview Park (two hundred and seventeen 
acres) , in which the Allegheny Observatory is situated. 
A large number of handsome bridges span the rivers. 
The Pittsburgh Country Club provides a broad ex- 
panse of rolling acres for pastoral sports. 

[90] 



INTELLECTUAL 



II 

In Schenley Park is the Carnegie Institute, with its 
new main building, dedicated in April ( 1 1, 12, and 13) , 
1907, with imposing ceremonies which were attended 
by several hundred prominent men from America and 
Europe. This building, which is about six hundred 
feet long and four hundred feet wide, contains a 
library, an art gallery, halls of architecture and sculp- 
ture, a museum, and a hall of music ; while the Carnegie 
Technical Schools are operated in separate buildings 
near by. It is built in the later Renaissance style, be- 
ing very simple and yet beautiful. Its exterior is of 
Ohio sandstone, while its interior finish is largely in 
marble, of which there are sixty-five varieties, brought 
from every famous quarry in the world. In its great 
entrance hall is a series of mural decorations by John 
W. Alexander, a distinguished son of Pittsburgh. The 
library, in which the institution had its beginning in 
1895, contains about 300,000 volumes, has seven im- 
portant branches, and one hundred and seventy-seven 
stations for the distribution of books. Mr. Edwin H. 
Anderson inaugurated the library at the time of its 
creation, and, after several years of successful service, 
was followed by Mr. Anderson H. Hopkins, and he by 
Mr. Harrison W. Craver, who is now the efficient 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

librarian. The Fine Arts department contains many 
casts of notable works of architecture and sculpture, 
sufficient to carry the visitor in fancy through an al- 
most unbroken development from the earliest times in 
which man began to produce beautiful structures to 
the present day. It is now the aim of this department 
to develop its galleries on three lines: first, to gather 
early American paintings from the very beginning of 
art in this country; second, to acquire such portraits 
of eminent men as will, in the passage of years, make 
these halls to some extent a national portrait gal- 
lery; and, third, to obtain such pieces of contemporary 
art as will lead to the formation of a thoroughly repre- 
sentative collection of modern painting. The Art 
Gallery is already rich in this latter purpose, and is 
renowned for its annual competitive exhibits which are 
open to the artists of all countries for prizes offered by 
the Carnegie Institute. Mr. John W. Beatty, Director 
of Fine Arts, has made the building up of this depart- 
ment his ripest and best work. The Museum embraces 
sections of paleontology, mineralogy, vertebrate and 
invertebrate zoology, entomology, botany, compara- 
tive anatomy, archaeology, numismatics, ceramics, 
textiles, transportation, carvings in wood and ivory, 
historical collections, the useful arts, and biological 
sciences. Its work in the department of paleontology 
is particularly noteworthy as it has extended the bound- 
aries of knowledge through its many explorations in the 

C923 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

western fossil fields. The success of the Museum is 
largely due to the energy and erudition of Dr. W. J. 
Holland, its amiable director. In the music-hall, a 
symphony orchestra is maintained, and free recitals 
are given on the great organ twice every week by a 
capable performer. When the orchestra began its work 
thirteen years ago, it is doubtful if there were very 
many persons in Pittsburgh, other than musical stu- 
dents, who knew the difference between a symphony, 
a suite, a concerto, and a fugue. To-day there are 
thousands of people in this city who can intelligently 
describe the shading differences in the Ninth Sym- 
phony and give good reasons for their preference as 
between the two movements of the "Unfinished." The 
first conductor of the orchestra was Frederic Archer, for 
three years, who was followed by Victor Herbert, for 
three years, and then came Emil Paur, who is now in 
charge. The Technical Schools embrace a School of 
Applied Science, a School for Apprentices and Journey- 
men, a School of Applied Design, and a School for 
Women, and already possess a capable faculty of 
one hundred and fifteen members, and a student body 
numbering 1,916. Dr. Arthur A. Hamerschlag is an 
enthusiastic and capable director of this educational 
scheme. The Institute is governed by a Board of Trus- 
tees, of which William N. Frew is President, Robert 
Pitcairn, Vice President, Samuel Harden Church, 
Secretary, and James H. Reed, Treasurer. Charles C. 

194:1 



INTELLECTUAL 

Mellor is chairman of the Museum committee, John 
Caldwell, of the Fine Arts committee, George A. Mac- 
beth, of the Library committee, and William McCon- 
way, of the Technical Schools committee. 

The annual celebration of Founder's Day at the 
Carnegie Institute has become one of the most nota- 
ble platform occasions in America, made so by the illus- 
trious men who participate in the exercises. Some of 
these distinguished orators are William McKinley and 
Grover Cleveland, former Presidents of the United 
States ; John Morley and James Bryce, foremost among 
British statesmen and authors; Joseph Jefferson, a be- 
loved actor; Richard Watson Gilder, editor and poet; 
Wu Ting Fang, Chinese diplomat, and Whitelaw 
Reid, editor and ambassador. At the great dedication 
of the new building, in April, 1907, the celebration of 
Founder's Day surpassed all previous efforts, being 
marked by the assembling of an illustrious group of 
men, and the delivery of a series of addresses, which 
made the festival altogether beyond precedent. On 
that occasion there came to Pittsburgh, as the guests of 
the Institute, from France, Dr. Leonce Benedite, Di- 
rector Musee du Luxembourg; Baron d'Estournelles 
de Constant, Member of the French Senate and of the 
Hague Court of Arbitration; Dr. Paul Doumer, late 
Governor-General of Cochin China, and Dr. Camille 
Enlart, Director of the Trocadero Museum; from Ger- 
many, upon the personal suggestion of his Majesty, 

[95] 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

Emperor William II, His Excellency Lieutenant-Gen- 
eral Alfred von Loewenfeld, Adjutant-General to his 
Majesty the Emperor; Colonel Gustav Dickhuth, 
Lecturer on Military Science to the Royal Household; 
Dr. Ernst von Ihne, Hof-Architekt Sr. Maj. d. Kai- 
sers; Dr. Reinhold Koser, Principal Director of the 
Prussian State Archives, and Prof. Dr. Fritz Schaper, 
sculptor; from Great Britain, Mr. William Archer, 
author and critic; Sir Robert S. Ball, Director of Cam- 
bridge Observatory; Dr. C. F. Moberly Bell, manager 
London "Times" ; Sir Robert Cranston, late Lord Pro- 
vost of Edinburgh; Sir Edward Elgar, composer; 
Mr. James Currie Macbeth, Provost of Dunferm- 
line; Dr. P. Chalmers Mitchell, Secretary Zoological 
Society, of London ; Sir William Henry Preece, Con- 
sulting Engineer to the G. P. O. and Colonies; Dr. 
John Rhys, Principal of Jesus College, University of 
Oxford; Dr. Ernest S. Roberts, Vice Chancellor of 
Cambridge University; Mr. William Robertson, 
Member Dunfermline Trust; Dr. John Ross, Chair- 
man Dunfermline Trust, and Dr. William T. Stead, 
editor "Review of Reviews" ; and from Holland, 
Jonkheer R. de Marees van Swinderen, Envoy Ex- 
traordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the 
United States, and Dr. Joost Marius Willem van der 
Poorten-Schwartz ("Maarten Maartens"), author. 

Mr. Andrew Carnegie has founded this splendid In- 
stitute, with its school system, at a cost already approxi- 

101 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

mating twenty million dollars, and he must enjoy the 
satisfaction of knowing it to be the rallying ground for 
the cultured and artistic life of the community. The 
progress made each year goes by leaps and bounds; so 
much so that we might well employ the phrase used by 
Macaulay to describe Lord Bacon's philosophy: "The 
point which was yesterday invisible is to-day its start- 
ing-point, and to-morrow will be its goal." The Insti- 
tute has truly a splendid mission. 



Ill ' 

The University of Pittsburgh was opened about 1770 
and incorporated by the Legislature in 1 787 under the 
name Pittsburgh Academy. In 1819 the name was 
changed to the Western LTniversity of Pennsylvania, 
but, holding to the narrower scope of a college, it did 
not really become a university until 1892, when it 
formed the Department of Medicine by taking over the 
Western Pennsylvania Medical College. In 1895 the 
Departments of Law and Pharmacy were added and 
women were for the first time admitted. In 1896 the 
Department of Dentistry was established. In 1908 
(July 1 ith) the name was changed to the LTniversity of 
Pittsburgh. The several departments of the LTni- 
versity are at present (1908) located in different parts 
of the city, but a new site of forty-three acres has been 



INTELLECTUAL 

acquired near Schenley Park on which it is planned to 
bring them all together. These new plans have been 
drawn under the direction of the chancellor, Dr. Samuel 
Black McCormick, whose faith in the merit of his cause 
is bound to remove whole mountains of financial diffi- 
culties. The University embraces a College and 
Engineering School, a School of Mines, a Graduate 
Department, a Summer School, Evening Classes, Sat- 
urday Classes, besides Departments of Astronomy, 
Law, Medicine, Pharmacy, and Dentistry. It now has 
a corps of one hundred and fifty-one instructors and a 
body of 1 , 1 38 students. 



IV 

The author ventures to repeat in this little book a 
suggestion which has been made by him several times, 
looking to a working cooperation or even a closer bond 
of union between the Carnegie Institute and the LTni- 
versity of Pittsburgh. In an address delivered at 
the Carnegie Institute on Founder's Day, 1908, the 
author made the following remarks on this subject: 

The temptation to go a little further into the future first re- 
quires the acknowledgment which St. Paul made when he wrote 
of marriage : "I speak not by authority, but by sufferance." There 
will soon begin to rise on these adjacent heights the first new 
buildings of the Western University (now University of Pitts- 
burgh), conceived in the classic spirit of Greece and crowning 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

that hill like a modern Acropolis. With its charter dating back 
one hundred and twenty-five years the University is already ven- 
erable in this land. Is it not feasible to hope that through the 
practical benevolence of our people, some working basis of union 
can be effected between that institution and this"? Here we have 
painting, and sculpture, and architecture, and books, and a won- 
derfull)^ rich scientific collection, and the abiding spirit of music. 
We have these fast-growing Technical Schools. And yet the 
entire scheme seems to be lacking something which marks its un- 
finished state. The Technical Schools do not and should not 
teach languages, literature, philosophy, and the fine arts, nor the 
old learned professions, but these must always rest in the Uni- 
versity. Should not one school thus supplement the other"? And 
then, the students on each side of this main building would find 
available here those great collections which, if properly demon- 
strated, would give them a larger opportunity for systematic 
culture than could be offered by any other community in the ^ 
world. For we should no longer permit these great departments 
of the fine arts and of the sciences to remain in a passive state, 
but the}' should all be made the means of active instruction from 
masterful professors. Music, its theory, composition, and per- 
formance on every instrument should be taught where demonstra- 
tions could be made with the orchestra and the organ. Successful 
painters and sculptors, the elected members of the future faculty, 
should fix their studios near the Institute and teach painting and 
sculpture as well as it could be done in Paris or Munich. Archi- 
tecture should thrive by the hand of its trained votaries, while 
science should continue to reveal the secrets of her most attractive 
mysteries. Then, as the ambitious youths of the ancient world 
came to xAthens to obtain the purest culture of that age, so would 
our modern youths, who are already in the Carnegie Technical 
Schools from twenty-six States, continue to come to Pittsburgh 
to partake of the most comprehensive scheme of education which 
the world would obtain. Believing firmly in the achieving power 
of hopeful thought, I pray you think on this. 



Doo] 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 



V 

In the East End is the Pennsylvania College for 
Women (Presbyterian; chartered in 1869), which has 
one hundred and two students. On the North Side 
(Allegheny) are the Allegheny Theological Seminary 
(United Presbyterian; founded in 1825) , which has six 
instructors and sixty-one students; the Western Theo- 
logical Seminary (Presbyterian; opened in 1827), with 
sixty-four students and twelve instructors, and a 
library of 34,000 volumes; and the Reformed Presby- 
terian Theological Seminary (founded in 1856) . 
There are five high schools and a normal academy and 
also the following private academies : Pittsburgh Acad- 
emy, for both boys and girls ; East Liberty Academy, for 
boys ; Lady of Mercy Academ}^ for girls and for boys in 
the lower grades; the Stuart-Mitchell School, for girls; 
the Gleim School, for girls; the Thurston School, for 
girls ; and the Ursuline Young Ladies' Academy. 

The Phipps Conservatory (horticulture) , the largest 
in America, and the Hall of Botany are in Schenley 
Park and were built by Mr. Henry Phipps. There is 
an interesting zoological garden in Highland Park 
which was founded by Mr. Christopher L. Magee. 

The Pittsburgh "Gazette," founded July 29, 1786, 
and consolidated with the Pittsburgh "Times" (1879) 

[102;] 



INTELLECTUAL 

in 1906 as the "Gazette Times," is one of the oldest 
newspapers west of the Alleghany Mountains. Other 
prominent newspapers of the city are the "Chronicle 
Telegraph" (1841); "Post" (1842); "Dispatch" 
(1846); "Leader" (1870; Sunday, 1864); "Press" 
(1883) ; and the "Sun" (1906). There are also two 
German dailies, the "Volksblatt und Freiheits- 
Freund" and the "Pittsburgher Beobachter," one Sla- 
vonic daily, one Slavonic weekly, two Italian weeklies, 
besides journals devoted to society and the iron, build- 
ing, and glass trades. The publishing house of the 
United Presbyterian Church is located here, and there 
are several periodical journals published by the various 
religious bodies. 

The city has some very attractive public buildings 
and office buildings and an unusual number of beauti- 
ful churches. The Allegheny County Court-House, in 
the Romanesque style, erected in 1884-88 at a cost of 
$2,500,000, is one of Henry H. Richardson's master- 
pieces. The Nixon Theater is a notable piece of archi- 
tecture. The Post-Office and the Customs Office are 
housed in a large Government building of polished 
granite. 

The city has twenty or more hospitals for the care of 
its sick, injured, or insane, ten of which have schools for 
the training of nurses. There is the Western Pennsyl- 
vania Institute for the Instruction of the Deaf and 
Dumb in Pittsburgh, which is in part maintained by 

D03] 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 




Court-house 



the State, where trades are taught as a part of the edu- 
cational system. The State also helps to maintain the 
Western Pennsylvania Institution for the Blind, the 



INTELLECTUAL 

Home for Aged and Infirm Colored Women, and the 
Home for Colored Children. Among other charitable 
institutions maintained by the city are the Home for 
Orphans, Home for the Aged, Home for Released Con- 
victs, an extensive system of public baths, the Curtis 
Home for Destitute Women and Girls, the Pittsburgh 
Newsboys' Home, the Children's Aid Society of West- 
ern Pennsylvania, the Protestant Home for Incurables, 
the Pittsburgh Association for the Improvement of the 
Poor, and the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society 
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Children, 
and Aged Persons. Under the management of Wo- 
men's Clubs several playgrounds are open to children 
during the summer, where competent teachers give in- 
struction to children over ten years of age in music, 
manual training, sewing, cooking, nature study, and 
color work. 

The water supply of Pittsburgh is taken from the 
Allegheny River and pumped into reservoirs, the high- 
est of which is Herron Hill, five hundred and thirty 
feet above the river. A slow sand filtration plant for 
the filtration of the entire supply is under construction 
and a part of it is in operation. In this last year the 
Legislature has passed an act prohibiting the deposit of 
sewage material in the rivers of the State, and this 
tardy action in the interest of decency and health will 
stop the ravages of death through epidemic fevers 
caught from poisoned streams. 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 



VI 

Pittsburgh maintains by popular support one of the 
four symphony orchestras in America. She has given 
many famous men to science, literature, and art. Her 
astronomical observatory is known throughout the 
world. Her rich men are often liberal beyond their 
own needs, particularly so William Thaw, who spent 
great sums for education and benevolence; Mrs. Mary 
Schenley, who has given the city a great park, over 
four hundred acres in the very heart of its boundaries; 
and Henry Phipps, who erected the largest conserva- 
tory for plants and flowers in our country. There is 
one other, Andrew Carnegie, whose wise and continu- 
ous use of vast wealth for the public good is nearly 
beyond human precedent. 

If Pittsburgh people were called upon to name their 
best known singer, they would, of course, with one 
accord, say Stephen C. Foster. His songs are verily 
written in the hearts of millions of his fellow-creatures, 
for who has not sung "Old Folks at Home," "Nelly 
Ely," "My Old Kentucky Home," and the others? 
Ethelbert Nevin is the strongest name among our 
musical composers, his "Narcissus," "The Rosary," and 
many others being known throughout the world. 

Charles Stanley Reinhart, Mary Cassatt, and John 
W. Alexander are the best known among our painters. 

[106] 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

Henry O. Tanner, the only negro painter, was born in 
Pittsburgh and learned the rudiments of his art here. 
Albert S. Wall, his son, A. Bryan Wall, George Hetzel, 
and John W. Beatty have painted good pictures, as 
have another group which includes William A. Coffin, 
Martin B. Leisser, Jaspar Lawman, Eugene A, Poole, 
Joseph R. Woodwell, William H. Singer, Clarence M. 
Johns, and Johanna Woodwell Hailman. Thomas S. 
Clarke is a Pittsburgh painter and sculptor. Philander 
C. Knox, United States Senator, and John Dalzell, 
member ot the House of Representatives, are promi- 
nent among those who have served Pittsburgh ably in 
the National Government. 



VII 

And how about letters'? Has Pittsburgh a litera- 
ture? Those rolling clouds of smoke, those mighty 
industries, those men of brawn, those men of energy, 
that ceaseless calculation of wages and dividends — 
can these produce an atmosphere for letters? It seems 
unthinkable. Yet hold! Only the other day on the 
train a man who has been a resident of New York for 
thirty-five years remarked in this author's presence that 
"Pittsburgh is the most intellectual city in America." 
He had never visited Pittsburgh and the author did not 
and does not know his name. "How about Boston?" 



INTELLECTUAL 

asked another traveler. "Boston used to be, but is not 
now," he answered. Then I, in my timid and artless 
way, ventured to ask him why he spoke thus of Pitts- 
burgh. "Because," said he, "distant as I am from Pitts- 
burgh, more inspiration in artistic and intellectual 
things has come to me from that city than from any 
other place in America." But that may have been his 
dinner or the cigar. 

Literature I once attempted to define as the written 
record of thought and action. If this be an adequate 
definition, then Pittsburgh writers have substantially 
enriched the field of literature in every department, 
and given our city permanent fame as a place of letters. 
As we begin our survey of the local field, the wonder 
grows that the literary production is so large, and that 
the character of much of it is so very high. Let Pegasus 
champ his golden bit as he may, and beat his hoof upon 
the empty air, Pittsburgh men and Pittsburgh women 
have ridden the classic steed with grace and skill 
through all the flowered deviations of his bridal paths. 
This is scarcely the place to attempt a critical estimate, 
and it would be an ungracious and a presumptuous task 
for me to appraise the literary value of that work with 
any great degree of detail. The occasion will hardly 
permit more than a list of names and titles ; and while 
pains have been taken to make this list complete, it is 
possible that some books may have been overlooked, but 
truly by inadvertence only. 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 



VIII 

Perhaps the most important piece of literature from 
a local pen is Professor William M. Sloane's "Life of 
Napoleon." This is a painstaking and authoritative 
record of the great Frenchman who conquered every- 
body but himself. Dr. William J. Holland, once chan- 
cellor of the University of Pittsburgh, now director of 
the Carnegie Museum, has given to the field of popular 
science "The Butterfly Book" — an author who knows 
every butterfly by its Christian name. Then Andrew 
Carnegie's "Triumphant Democracy" presents masses 
of statistics with such lightness of touch as to make 
them seem a stirring narrative. His other books, "An 
American Four-in-Hand in Britain" and "Round the 
World" present the vivid impressions of a keen traveler. 
His "Life of James Watt" conveys a sympathetic por- 
traiture of the inventor of the steam engine. His "Gos- 
pel of Wealth" is a piece of deep-thinking discursive- 
ness, although it really seems a superfluous thesis, for 
Mr. Caraegie's best exposition of the gospel of wealth 
unfolds itself in two thousand noble buildings erected 
all over the world for the diffusion of literature; in 
those splendid conceptions, the Scottish Education 
Fund ; the Washington Carnegie Institution for Scien- 
tific Research; the Pension for College Professors, 

[no] 




u 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

which has so much advanced the dignity and security 
of teaching; the Pension for Aged and Disabled Work- 
men; the Hero Fund, with its provision of aid to the 
injured and to the worthy poor; the many college en- 
dowments; and, greater than all, the Peace Palace at 
The Hague, through which he will make his appeal to 
the conscience of civilization during all time to organize 
and extend among the nations of the earth that system 
of arbitrated justice which has been already established 
within the borders of each State. 

But if I continue to group our Pittsburgh authors in 
this arbitrary fashion, those who come at the end will 
think I mean the last to be least. Therefore, let me 
pursue the theme indiscriminately, as I meant to do all 
along had not that same Pegasus, in spite of my defi- 
ance, run away at the very start. 



IX 

The first Pittsburgh book that I can find in my hur- 
ried review of the field is "Modern Chivalry," by Hugh 
Henry Brackenridge. The third volume of this book 
was printed in Pittsburgh in 1796, the first two having 
been published in Philadelphia. This writer's son, 
Henry M. Brackenridge, was also an author, having 
written "History of the Late War between the United 



INTELLECTUAL 

States and Great Britain," "History of the Western 
Insurrection called the Whisky Insurrection, 1794," 
"Journal of a Voyage up the River Missouri, Per- 
formed in 1811," "Recollections of Persons and Places 
in the West," and several other books. Neville B. 
Craig wrote a "History of Pittsburgh," published in 
1851, which is still a work of standard reference. An- 
other "History of Pittsburgh" was brought out some 
ten years ago under the editorship of Erasmus Wilson, 
who has also published a volume of "Quiet Observa- 
tions," selected from his newspaper essays. But the 
most important, painstaking, and accurate "History of 
Pittsburgh" which has yet been published is the one by 
Miss Sarah H. Killikelly, published in 1906. Another 
book of hers, "Curious Questions," is an entertaining 
collection of many queer things that have occurred in 
the world's history. Robert P. Nevin wrote "Black 
Robes" and "Three Kings." Professor Samuel P. 
Langley was for many years in charge of the Allegheny 
Observatory and won fame while here as a writer on 
scientific subjects. Also the first models of his flying 
machine were made while he was a resident in Pitts- 
burgh. W. M. Darlington wrote "Fort Pitt" and 
edited the journals of Christopher Gist, who was Wash- 
ington's scout when the Father of his Country first 
came to Pittsburgh. "Two Men in the West" is the 
title of a little book on travel by W. R. Halpin. Arthur 
G. Burgoyne, a newspaper writer, has published "All 

D13:] 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

Sorts of Pittsburghers." George Seibel has written 
three beautiful plays which have not yet been produced 
because the modern stage managers seem to prefer to 
produce unbeautiful plays. One of these is "Omar 
Khayyam," which was accepted and paid for by Richard 
Mansfield, who died before he could arrange for its 
production. Another is "Christopher Columbus," and 
he has just finished an important tragedy entitled 
"CEdipus," dealing artistically with a horrifying story, 
which has been accepted for early production by Mr. 
Robert Mantel. Mr. Seibel has published a monograph 
on "The Mormon Problem." Charles P. Shiras wrote 
the "Redemption of Labor," and a drama, "The Invisi- 
ble Prince," which was played in the old Pittsburgh 
Theater. Hartley Campbell was the most prolific 
writer of plays that Pittsburgh has yet produced, and 
his melodramas have been played in nearly every thea- 
ter in America. H. G. Donnelly, well known as a play- 
wright, was also a Pittsburgher. Mrs. Mary Roberts 
Rinehart is a young author who is coming to the front as 
a writer of successful dramas, stories, and books. Her 
plays, "The Double Life" and "By Order of the Court" 
have been produced, and a novel, "The Circular Stair- 
case," has just appeared from the press. My own little 
play, "The Brayton Episode," was played by Miss 
Sarah Truax at the Alvin Theater, Pittsburgh, June 24, 
1903, and by Miss Eleanor Moretti at the Fifth Avenue 
Theater, New York, January 15, 1905. 




u 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

Rev. W. G. Mackay wrote tales of history under the 
title of "The Skein of Life." Father Morgan M. 
Sheedy and Rev. Dr. George Hodges, who used to 
strive together in Pittsburgh to surpass each other in 
tearing down the walls of religious prejudice that keep 
people out of the Kingdom of Heaven, have each given 
us several books on social and religious topics com- 
posed on the broad and generous lines of thought which 
only such sensible teachers know how to employ. 
Among Dr. Hodges' books are "Christianity between 
Sundays," the "Heresy of Cain," and "Faith and 
Social Service"; while Father Sheedy has published 
"Social Topics." 

That devoted student of nature, Dr. Benjamin Cut- 
ler Jillson, wrote a book called "Home Geology," and 
another, "River Terraces In and Near Pittsburgh," 
which carry the fancy into far-off antiquity. Professor 
Daniel Carhart, of the University of Pittsburgh, has 
given us "Field Work for Civil Engineers" and "Trea- 
tise on Plane Surveying." From J. Heron Foster we 
have "A Full Account of the Great Fire at Pittsburgh 
in 1845." Adelaide M. Nevin published "Social Mir- 
ror," and Robert P. Nevin "Poems," a book with mood 
and feeling. Dr. Stephen A. Hunter, a clergyman, is 
the author of an erudite work entitled "Manual of 
Therapeutics and Pharmacy in the Chinese Language." 

Walter Scott, who, after taking a course at the Uni- 
versity of Edinburgh, came to Pittsburgh in 1826, was 

D163 



INTELLECTUAL 

a very distinguished preacher and author. His greatest 
reputation was gained in his work in association with 
Alexander Campbell in establishing the principles of 
the now mighty congregation known as the Christian, 
or Disciples, Church. His books are: "The Gospel 
Restored," 'The Great Demonstration," and "The 
Union of Christians." 

A memoir of Professor John L. Lincoln, by his son, 
W. L. Lincoln, gives a record of a life so spent that 
many men were truly made better thereby. Father 
Andrew A. Lambing, President of the Historical Soci- 
ety of Western Pennsylvania, has written useful mono- 
graphs on the early history of this region, and he is one 
of the first authorities in that field. He has also com- 
posed books on religious subjects. E. W. Duckwell 
wrote "Bacteriology Applied to the Canning and Pre- 
serving of Food Products." 

Richard Realf was a poet "whose songs gushed from 
his heart," and some of them hold a place in literature. 
His "Monarch of the Forges" breathes the deep spirit 
of industrial life as he found it in Pittsburgh. 

Mr. Lee S. Smith, now (1908) president of the 
Chamber of Commerce, has published an interesting 
book entitled "Through Egypt to Palestine," describ- 
ing his travels in the Orient. 

Our men who have written most knowingly on in- 
dustrial topics are James M. Swank and Joseph D. 
Weeks. A young writer, Francis Hill, has published 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

a very readable boys' story, "Outlaws of Horseshoe 
Hole," and Arthur Sanwood Pier has published "The 
Pedagogues," a novel satirizing the Harvard Summer 
School. 

Rev. Henry C. McCook's very successful novel, 
"The Latimers," is an engaging study of the whisky 
insurrection of early Pittsburgh days. Thomas B. 
Plimpton is remembered by some as a writer of verse. 
Judge J. E. Parke and Judge Joseph Mellon have 
written historical essays. Josiah Copley wrote "Gath- 
ering Beulah." Logan Conway is the author of 
"Money and Banking." He has also written a series 
of essays on "Evolution." Miss Cara Reese has pub- 
lished a little story entitled "And She Got All That." 
Miss Willa Sibert Cather has just published her 
"Poems." Charles McKnight's "Old Fort Duquesne; 
or Captain Jack the Scout" is a stirring book that has 
fired the hearts of many boys who love a good tale. 
William Harvey Brown's story, "On the South African 
Frontier," was written and published while he was a 
curator in the Carnegie Museum. 

Pittsburgh has produced a group of standard school- 
books — always of the very first importance in the lit- 
erature of any country. Among these are the books by 
Andrew Burt and Milton B. Goff, and a series of read- 
ers by Lucius Osgood. 

Henry J. Ford's "Rise and Growth of American 
Politics" is a well-studied work. Henry A. Miller's 

Di8] 







m' 



feft 












,1^^"- 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

"Money and Bimetallism" is a conscientious statement 
of his investigations of that question. Judge Marshall 
Brown has written two books, "Bulls and Blunders" 
and "Wit and Humor of Famous Sayings." Frank M. 
Bennett's "Steam Navy of the United States" is a use- 
ful technical work. 

L. C. Van Noppen, after pursuing his studies of 
Dutch literature in Holland, came to Pittsburgh and 
wrote a translation of Vondel's great Dutch classical 
poem "Lucifer." Vondel published the original of this 
work some ten or fifteen years before Milton's "Para- 
dise Lost" appeared, and critics have tried to show by 
the deadly parallel column that Milton drew the in- 
spiration for some of his highest poetical flights from 
Vondel. It is probable, however, that Milton was un- 
conscious of the existence of Vondel's work. 

S. L. Fleishman has translated the poems of Heine 
with tenderness and feeling. Ella Boyce Kirk has 
written several educational pamphlets. Morgan Nev- 
ille published a poem, "Comparisons." From that 
Prince Rupert of the astronomers. Professor James E. 
Keeler, who has made more than one fiery dash across 
the borderland of known science, we have "Spectro- 
scopic Observations of Nebulse." That truly gifted 
woman, Margaretta Wade Deland, was born in Pitts- 
burgh in 1857 and resided here until her marriage in 
1880. Among her books are "John Ward, Preacher," 
"The Story of a Child," "Philip and His Wife," and 



INTELLECTUAL 

"Old Chester Tales." Jane Grey Swisshelm wrote the 
recollections of an eventful experience under the title 
"Half a Century of Life." Nicholas Biddle composed 
a studious "Life of Sebastian Cabot," and another 
book, "Modern Chivalry." Mrs. Annie Wade has 
written poems and stories. The city has fathered many 
able writers against slavery and intemperance, among 
whom was William H. Burleigh, who wrote "Our 
Country." William B. Conway wrote "Cottage on the 
Cliff." From Rev. John Black we have "The Everlast- 
ing Kingdom," and Rev. John Tassey published a 
"Life of Christ." William G. Johnston's interesting 
book, "Experiences of a Forty-niner," was published in 
1892. John Reed Scott has published two successful 
novels, "The Colonel of the Red Hussars " and "Bea- 
trix of Clare." Martha Fry Boggs wrote "A Romance 
of New Virginia." Then there are "Polly and L" by 
Cora Thurmston; "Free at Last" and "Emma's Tri- 
umph," by Mrs. Jane S. Collins; "Her Brother Don- 
nard," by Emily E. Verder; "Essays," by Anna Pier- 
pont Siviter; "Human Progress," by Thomas S. Blair; 
"Steel: A Manual for Steel Users," a useful mono- 
graph by William Metcalf; and "Memoir of John 
B. Gibson," by Colonel Thomas P. Roberts. Then 
there are some poor things from my own pen, if, in 
order to make the record complete, I may add them at 
the end— "Oliver Cromwell: A History" (1894); 
"John Marmaduke : A Romance of the English Inva- 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

sion of Ireland in 1649" (1897) ; "Beowulf: A Poem" 
(1901) ; 'Tenruddock of the White Lambs," a novel 
(1903) ; "The Brayton Episode," a play (1903) ; "The 
Sword of the Parliament," a play (1907) ; and this, "A 
Short History of Pittsburgh" (1908) . 

And such is the list. Imperfect though it may be, it 
is the best that I have been able to compose. But how 
large and full the measure of it all is ! History, biog- 
raphy, philosophy, religion, nature, science, criticism, 
government, coinage and finance, art, poetry, the 
drama, travel, adventure, fiction, society, education, all 
avenues of human activity, all themes of human specu- 
lation, have been covered in books written with more or 
less interest and power by men and women of Pitts- 
burgh. Much of this volume of production is ephem- 
eral, but some of it on the other hand is undoubtedly a 
permanent addition to the world's literature. 



X 

One word more before leaving this subject. Litera- 
ture has not until recently enjoyed that degree of at- 
tention from the public press of Pittsburgh which it 
deserves. It ought to be the concern of every human 
unit in the nation to receive honest guidance in the de- 
velopment of literature; for literature, once again, is 
the written record of thought and action. Mobs will 

[122;] 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

melt away when the units in the mob begin to think, 
and they will think when they read. Then will the 
law be paramount, and then will our institutions be 
safe. Thousands of our serious people annually sub- 
scribe for literary reviews of one kind or another in 
order that they may follow the rapid expansion of the 
written record of the thought and action of the world, 
when the whole department might be covered so admir- 
ably by our daily newspapers. Should not the news- 
paper give each household practically all it needs in 
criticism and information outside of the printed books 
themselves? How easily we could spare some of the 
glaring and exaggerated headlines over the daily record 
of crime, misconduct, and false leadership, which in- 
flame the mind and the passions with evil fire, and how 
joyfully we would welcome instead an intelligent, con- 
scientious, comprehensive, discriminating, piquant — in 
short, a masterful discussion from day to day of the 
written record of the thought and action of the world 
as unfolded in its statesmanship, its oratory, its educa- 
tion, its heroism, and its literature. 



XI 

And so my little story of Pittsburgh comes to an end. 
It is the story of a great achievement in the building of 
a city, and the development of a community within its 



A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 

boundaries. I have sometimes heard a sneer at Pitts- 
burgh as a place where undigested wealth is paramount. 
I have never beheld the city in that character. On the 
contrary, I have, on frequent occasions, seen the assem- 
blage of men native here where a goodly section of 
the brain and power of the nation was represented. 
There is much wealth here, but the dominant spirit 
of those who have it is not a spirit of pride and luxury 
and arrogance. There is much poverty here, but it is 
the poverty of hope which effort and opportunity will 
transform into affluence. And especially is there here 
a spirit of good fellowship, of help one to another, and 
of pride in the progress of the intellectual life. And 
with all of these comes a growth toward the best civic 
character which in its aggregate expression is probably 
like unto the old Prophet's idea of that righteousness 
which exalteth a nation. 



[126] 



INDEX 



Adams, Gabriel, Mayor, 51 
Alexander, John W., 91, 106 
Allegheny, made county-seat, 

40; county-seat changed to 

Pittsburgh, 40; annexed to 

Pittsburgh, 52 
Allegheny Cemetery, 90 
Allegheny County, erection of, 

40; iron and steel products of, 

84 

Allegheny Observatory, 84, 99 
Allegheny River improved, 82 
Alleghen}^ Theological Semi- 
nary, 102 
Amalgamated Association of 
Iron and Steel Workers, 71, 

78 

Amherst, General, captures 
Fort Frontenac, 29 

Anderson, Edwin H., 91 

Archer, Frederick, 94 

Archer, William, 100 

Armstrong, Colonel, raises Eng- 
lish flag over Fort Duquesne, 
29 

Artists, list of, 106 

Astronomical Observatory, 91, 
106 

Authors, list of, 112 

[1 



Ball, Sir Robert S., 96 
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad 

Company, 49, 60, 81 
Barker, Joseph, Mayor, 51 
Baron, Father, 29 
Beatty, John W., 92, 108 
Beatty, Rev. Mr., 29 
Beauj eu, Captain, attacks 

Braddock's army, 22; killed, 

23 
Bell, C. F. Moberly, 96 

Benedite, Leonce, 95 

Bennett, Frank M., 120 

Biddle, Nicholas, 121 

Bingham, William, Mayor, 51 

Black, John, 121 

Blackmore, James, Ma^^or, 52 

Blair, Francis P., ^^ 

Blair, Thomas S., 121 
"Blockhouse," built by Bouquet, 
34; occupied by Dr. John 
Connelly, 37 ; used by Colo- 
nial troops in Revolution, 37 

Boggs, Martha Fry, 1 2 1 

Bouquet, Colonel Henry, 
builds "Blockhouse," 34; 
leads army at Battle of Bushy 
Run, 35 

Brackenridge, Henry M., 112 

273 



INDEX 



Brackenridge, Hugh Henry, 

112 

Braddock, General Edward, 
marches upon Fort Duquesne, 
21; wounded in battle, 24; 
his army defeated, 24; death 
of, 25 
Braddock's defeat, effect of on 

Colonies, 25 
Brashear, John A., 85 
Breckenridge, John C, 57 
Broadhead, Colonel, 38 
Brown, A. M., Recorder, 52 
Brown, Joseph, 70 
Brown, J. O., Recorder, 52 
Brown, Marshall, 120 
Brown, William Harvey, 118 
Brush, Jared M., Mayor, 52 
Bryce, Right Honorable 

James, 95 
Buchanan, James, 57 
Burgoyne, Arthur G., 113 
Burleigh, William H., 121 
Burt, Andrew, 118 
Bushy Run, Battle of, 35 

Caldwell, John, 94 
Calvary Cemetery, 90 
Campbell, Alexander, 117 
Campbell, Bartley, 114 
Carhart, Daniel, 116 
Carnegie, Andrew, 85, 96, 106, 

1 10 
Carnegie Institute, 91, 99 
Carnegie Steel Company, 7 1 , 

Carnegie Technical Schools, 91, 

94 
Cassatt, Alexander Johnston, 

85 



Cassatt, Mary, 106 
Cather, Willa Sibert, 1 18 
Celeron, Louis, 16 
Charitable institutions, 103 
Chatham, Earl of (William 

Pitt),25, 29, 37 
Church, Samuel, 83 
Church, Samuel Harden, 94, 

114, 121 
Civil War, 53 
Clarke, Thomas S., 123 
Clay, Henry, visits Pittsburgh, 

58 

Cleveland, Grover, 95 
Coffin, William A, 108 
Collins annexed to Pittsburgh, 

Collins, Jane S., 121 
Composers, list of, 106 
Constant, Baron d'Estour- 

nelles de, 95 
Constitutional Convention, 53 
Contrecoeur, Captain, visited by 
Washington, 17; his reply re- 
ceived by English, 19; cap- 
tures fort at Pittsburgh and 
names it Fort Duquesne, 20 
Conwa)/^, Logan, 118 
Conway, William B., 121 
Copley, Josiah, 1 18 
Country Club, 90 
Court-house, architect of, 103; 

cost of, 103 
Craig, Neville B., 113 
Cranston, Sir Robert, 96 
Craver, Harrison W., 92 

Dalzell, John, 108 
Darlington, W. M., 113 
Darragh, John, Mayor, 51 

28] 



INDEX 



Daughters of American Revolu- 
tion, 34 

Davis Island Dam, 82 

Dayton, William L., 57 

Defiance, Fort, built by Gen- 
eral Wayne, 42 

Deland, Margaretta Wade, 120 

Denny, Ebenezer, Mayor, 51 

Denny, Governor, 29 

Dickens, Charles, visits Pitts- 
burgh, 58 

Dickhuth, Colonel Gustav, 96 

Diehl, William J., Mayor, 52 

Dinwiddle, Governor, sends 
Washington to Pittsburgh, 14 

Donnelly, H. G., 114 

Doumer, Paul, 95 

Duckwell, E. W., 117 

Dunfermline, 28 

Dunmore, Governor, opens 
land office in Pittsburgh, 35 

Duquesne, Fort, built and 
named by French, 20; cap- 
tured by English, 29; blown 
up and burned by French, 29 ; 
taken possession of by Eng- 
lish, 29; name changed to 
Fort Pitt, 29 

East Liberty Academy, 102 
Ecuyer, Simon, leads attack on 

Fort Pitt, 35 
Elgar, Sir Edward, 96 
Emancipation Proclamation, 53 
England, war with France, 15 
Enlart, Camille, 95 

Fang, Wu Ting, 95 
Farragut, Admiral, visits Pitts- 
burgh, 58 



Fleishman, S. L., 120 
Forbes, General, captures Fort 
Duquesne, 14; names captured 
fort Pittsburgh, 14, 29; his 
letter to Pitt announcing cap- 
ture and renaming of Fort 
Duquesne, 29 
Ford, Henry J., 118 
Ford, Henry P., Mayor, 52 
Foster, J. Heron, 116 
Foster, Stephen C, 106 
Founder's Day, 95 
France, war with England, 15 
Franklin, Benjamin, 21 
Fremont, John C, 57 
French Revolution, 43 
Frew, William N., 94 
Frick, Henry C, 72, 76, 77, 85 
Frontenac, Fort, captured by 

General Amherst, 29 
Fulton, Andrew, Mayor, 52 

Gilder, Richard Watson, 95 
Gist, Christopher, accompanies 
Washington to Pittsburgh, 14 ; 
hardships of journey to Fort 
Leboeuff, 17, 18, 19; saves 
Washington from drowning, 

19 

Gleim School, 102 

Goff, Milton B., 118 
Gourley, Henry I., Mayor, 52 
Grant, General U. S., visits 

Pittsburgh, 58 
Grant, Major, defeated at 

Grant's Hill and killed, 28 
Great Meadows, Battle of, 20 
Greeley, Horace, §^, 56, 57 
Greensburg, 40 
Guthrie, George W., Mayor, 52 

29 H 



INDEX 



Guthrie, John B., Mayor, 51 
Guthrie, P. N., 70 
Guyesuta, 17 

Haihnan, Johanna Woodwell, 

108 
Hall of Botany, 102 
Halpin, W. R., 113 
Hamerschlag, Arthur A., 94 
Hancock, John, 38 
Hand, General Edward, plans 

expedition against Indians, 38 
Hay, Alexander, Mayor, 51 
Hays, W. B., Recorder and 

Mayor, 52 
Heinz Company, 84 
Herbert, Victor, 94 
Herron Hill Reservoir, 105 
Herron, John, Mayor, 51 
Herr's Island, 19 
Hetzel, George, 108 
Highland Park, 90 
Hill, Francis, 1 17 
Hodges, George, 1 1 6 
Holland, W. J., 94, 1 10 
Homestead Steel Works, 68 
Homestead strike, 7 1 
Homewood Cemetery, 90 
Hopkins, Anderson H., 91 
Hospitals, 103 
Howard, William J., Mayor, 

Hunter, Stephen A., 116 

Ihne, Ernst von, 96 

Indians cede land about Pitts- 
burgh to Colonies, 35 

Irvine, General William, placed 
in command of Fort Pitt, 39 

Irwin, William W., Mayor, 51 



Jackson, George N., 56 
Jefferson, Joseph, 95 
Jillson, Benjamin Cutler, 

116 
Johns, Clarence M., 108 
Johnson, President, visits 

Pittsburgh, 58 
Johnston, Governor, visits 

Pittsburgh, 58 
Johnston, William G., 121 
Johnstown Flood, 58 
Jumonville, death of, 20 

Keeler, James E., 120 
Kensington Iron Works, 83 
Kerr, William, Mayor, 51 
Keyashuta, Indian chief, 17 
Killikelly, Sarah H., 113 
King, John A^, ^^ 
Kirk, Ella Boyce, 120 
Knox, Philander C, 108 
Koser, Reinhold, 96 
Kossuth, Louis, visits Pitts- 
burgh, 58 

Lady of Mercy Academy, 102 
Lafayette, Fort, built, 42 
Lafayette, General, visits Pitts- 
burgh, 58 
Lambing, A. A., 117 
Langley, Samuel P., 113 
Lawman, Jaspar, 108 
Lawrenceville annexed to 

Pittsburgh, 52 
Leboeuff, Fort, 17 
Leisser, Martin B., 108 
Lexington, Battle of, 37 
Liberty annexed to Pittsburgh, 

Liddell, Robert, Mayor, 52 
30] 



INDEX 



Ligneris, Captain, surrenders 
Fort Duquesne, 29 
Lincoln, Abraham, visits Pitts- 
burgh, 58 
Lincoln, John L., 117 
Lincoln, W. L., 117 
Little, William, Mayor, 51 
Loewenfeld, His Excellency 
Lieutenant General Alfred 
von, 95 
Logstown, storehouses built by 
Ohio Company, 16; captured 
by French, 16 
Louisburg, capture of, 28 
Lowrie, Walter B., Mayor, 51 
Lowry, James, Mayor, 5 1 
Lyon, Robert W., Mayor, 52 

"Maarten Maartens," 96 
Macbeth, George A., 94 
Macbeth, James Currie, 96 
Mackay, W. G., 116 
Magee, C. L., 102 
Mail route to Philadelphia 

established, 40 
Mansfield, Robert, 114 
Mantel, Robert, 114 
Mayflower, landing of, 53 
McCallin, William, Mayor, 52 
McCarthy, William C, Mayor, 

McCarthy, W. L., Mayor, 52 
McClintock, Jonas R., Mayor, 

McConway, William, 95 
McCook, Henry C, 118 
McCormick, Samuel Black, 99 
McCrea, James, 78 
McKenna, Bernard, Mayor, 52 
McKinley, William, 95 

[1 



McKnight, Charles, 1 18 
Mellon, Joseph, 118 
Mellor, Charles C, 94 
Metcalf, William, 121 
Miller, Henry A., 118 
Milton, John, 120 
Mitchell, P. Chalmers, 107 
Monongahela River improved, 

83 

Monroe, President, visited 

Pittsburgh, 58 
Montcalm, death of, 3 1 
Moretti, Eleanor, 114 
Morgan, Colonel George, 38 
Morley, John, 95 
Murray, Magnus M., Mayor, 

51 

Necessity, Fort, built by Wash- 
ington, 2 1 ; captured by 
French, 21 
Neville, Morgan, 120 
Nevin, Adelaide M., 1 16 
Nevin, Ethelbert, 106 
Nevin, Robert P., 113, 116 
Newspapers, list of, 40, 1 13 
New York Central Lines, 60, 81 
Niagara, Fort, fall of, 31 
Nixon Theater, 103 

Oakland annexed to Pittsburgh, 

O'Hara, James, 84 

Ohio & Pennsylvania Railroad, 

49 
Ohio Company formed, 16 

Osgood, Lucius, 118 

Parke, J. E., 118 

Paur, Emil, 94 

30 



INDEX 



Peiirson, A. L., 63 

Peebles annexed to Pitts- 
burp;h, ^"2 

Penn family, purchased Pitts- 
biirpjh region from Indians, 
39; their title annulled, 39 

Pennsylvania, dis[)ute with Vir- 
ginia settled, 40 

Pennsylvania and Ohio R. R. 
Co. incorporated, 48 

Pennsylvania Canal, j)roposed, 
47; construction authorized, 
47; canal completed, 48; ter- 
mini of, 48; ])ortage railroad, 
48; cost, 48; sold to Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad Company, 48; 
abandoned, 49 

Pennsylvania College for 
Women, 102 

Pennsylvania Railroad Com- 
pany, 48, 49, 60, 81, 85 

Pennsylvania, Western Univer- 
sity of. See ITniversity of 
Pittsburgh 

Pettigrew, Samuel, Mayor, c^\ 

Phip[xs Conservatory, 102 

Phipps, Henry, 8^, 102, 106 

Pier, Arthur Stanwood, 1 18 

Pinkerton, Robert A., 76 

Pitcairn, Robert, 94 

Pitt annexed to Pittsburgh, c;2 

Pitt, Fort, building of first fort, 
30; building of second fort, 
31 ; abandoned, 36; mutiny at, 
39; (General William Irvine 
])ut in command, 39; first 
court held, 40 

Pitt, William, Earl of Chat- 
ham, 25, 29, 37 

Pittsbm-gh, site selected for 



fort, 13, 14; site claimed by 
Virginia, 14; said to have been 
named by Washington, 14; 
French attempt to make settle- 
ment, 16; explored by Louis 
Celeron, 16; Washington's 
first impressions of, 17; first 
permanent white settlement, 
20; captured by Contrecoeur, 
20; named Fort Duquesne, 
20; captureci from French by 
English, 29; name changed to 
Pittsburgh, 29; first Fort Pitt 
built, 30; second Fort Pitt 
built, 31 ; attacked by Indians 
under Simon Ecuyer, 35 ; land 
ceded to Colonies by Indians, 
35"; land office opened, 35; 
made county seat, 40; first 
court held, 40; ducking-stool 
erected, 40; size of in 1786, 
40; mail route to Philacielphia 
established, 40; new fort built 
and named Fort Lafayette, 42 ; 
town laid out, ^o; incorpo- 
rated as a borough, ^o; char- 
tered as a city, ^"0; new 
charter adopted in 1887, '^o; 
"Ripper" charter adopted, 5'o; 
list of mayors, 5 1 ; first Repub- 
lican Convention, '^'3; distin- 
guished visitors, ^8; great 
fire, 58; railroad riots, 59; 
consolidation of Pittsburgh 
and Allegheny, '^2; present 
population, 79, 81 ; tonnage 
compared with other cities, 
82 ; surrounded by rich coal 
and gas fields, 83; imports in 
1 907, 83 : manufacture of iron 

1 



INDEX 



begun, 83; iron and steel 
statistics, 83, 84, 86; value of 
various products, 84; first 
glass works built, 84; rank as 
a glass-producing center, 84; 
as a banking center, 85; tax 
valuation of property, 86; 
public buildings, 103; hos- 
pitals, 103; charitable institu- 
tions, 103; water supply, 105 

Pittsburgh Academy, 41, 98, 
102 

Pittsburgh and Connellsville 
Railroad, 49 

Pittsburgh and Lake Erie 
Canal, 81 

Pittsburgh and Lake Erie 
Railroad, 49 

Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago 
& St. Louis Railroad, 49 

Pittsburgh Country Club, 90 

Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & 
Chicago Railroad, 49 

Pittsburgh Harbor, 82 

Pittsburgh Orchestra, 94, 106 

Pittsburgh riots, 59 

Pittsburgh, University of, 41, 

98 

Plimpton, Thomas B., 118 
Pontiac plans attack on 

whites, 34 
Poole, Eugene A., 108 
Poorten-Schwartz, Joost Ma- 

rius Willem van der ("Maar- 

ten Maartens"), 96 
Preece, Sir William Henry, 96 

Quebec, fall of, 31 

Realf, Richard, 1 17 



Rebellion, War of, 53 
Reed, James H., 94 
Reese, Cara, 118 
Reformed Presbyterian Theo- 
logical Seminary, 102 
Reid, Whitelaw, 95 
Reinhart, Charles Stanley, 106 
Republican Association, 54 
Republican Party, founding 
of, 52; first Convention, ^^; 
first candidates, 57 
Rhys, John, 96 
Richardson, H. H., 103 
Riddle, Robert M., Mayor, 51 
Rinehart, Mary Roberts, 114 
"Ripper" charter, 50 
Riverview Park, 90 
Roberts, E. S., 96 
Roberts, Thomas P., 121 
Robertson, William, 96 
Ross, John, 96 

St. Clair, General Arthur, sent 
against Indians, 42; de- 
feated, 42 

Sassoonan, 16 

Sawyer, B. C, Mayor, 51 

Schaper, Fritz, 96 

Schenley, Mrs. Mary, 106 

Schenley Park, 90, 91 

Scott, Walter, 1 16 

Seibel, George, 114 

Semple, Samuel, 35" 

Seward, William H., Secretary 
of State, visits Pittsburgh, 58 

Sheedy, Morgan M., 116 

Shiras, Charles R., 114 

Singer, William H., 108 

Siviter, Anna Pierpont, 121 

Slavery, introduction into 



D333 



INDEX 



United States, 53; abolished, 

53 
Sloane, William H., 1 10 
Smith, Lee S., 117 
Snowden, John M., Mayor, 51 
Stanwix, General, builds new 

Fort Pitt, 31 
Stead, William T., 107 
Stuart-Mitchell School, 102 
Swank, James M., 117 
Swinderen, R. de Marees van, 

96 
Swisshelm, Jane Grey, 121 

Tanner, Henry O., 108 

Tassey, John, 121 

Taylor, President, visits 
Pittsburgh, 58 

Thaw, William, 106 

Thomson, James, Mayor, 51 

Thurmston, Cora, 121 

Thurston School, 102 

Ticonderoga, capture of, 28 

Trent, Captain William, estab- 
lished first permanent white 
settlement in Pittsburgh, 20 

Truax, Sarah, 1 14 

Turtle Creek, 19 

Uniontown, fort at, 21 
United States Steel Corpora- 
tion, 85 
University of Pittsburgh, 41, 

Ursuline Young Ladies' 
Academy, 102 

Van Noppen, L. C, 120 

Venango, 1 8 

Verder, Emily E., 121 



Virginia, claims site of Pitts- 
burgh, 14; sends Washington 
to retake Fort Duquesne, 20; 
dispute with Pennsylvania 
settled, 40 

Volz, Ferdinand E., Mayor, 51 

Vondel, 120 

Wabash R. R. Co., 49, 74 

Wade, Annie, 121 

Wales, Prince of, visits Pitts- 
burgh, 58 

Wall, A. Bryan, 108 

Wall, Albert S., 108 

Washington, George, the first 
Pittsburgher, 13; first visits 
Pittsburgh, 13, 17; his visits 
to Pittsburgh, 13, 14, 17, 
35; said to have named 
Pittsburgh, 14; first impres- 
sions of site of Pittsburgh, 
17; hardships of journey to 
Fort Leboeuff, 17, 18, 19; 
shot at by his Indian guide, 
19; saved from drowning by 
Gist, 19; sent to retake Fort 
Duquesne, 20; directs the re- 
treat of Braddock's army, 
24; commands militia at 
Fort Duquesne, 28; last 
visit to Pittsburgh, 35; warns 
General St. Clair against 
Indians, 42; sends army to 
suppress whisky insurrection, 

44 

Wayne, Fort, built b}- Gen- 
eral Wayne, 42 

Wayne, General Anthony, sent 
against Indians, 42; builds 
Fort Defiance and Fort 



1^34-1 



W 98 



INDEX 



Wayne, 42; defeats Indians, 
42 
Weaver, Henry A., Mayor, 51 
Webster, Daniel, visits Pitts- 
burgh, 58 
Weeks, Joseph D., 117 
Welles, Gideon, Secretary of 
Navy, visits Pittsburgh, 58 
Western Theological Semi- 
nary, 102 
Western University of Penn- 
sylvania. See University of 
Pittsburgh 



Westinghouse Company, 85 
Westinghouse, George, 85 
Whisky insurrection, 42 
William II, Emperor of Ger- 
many, 101 
Wilson, Erasmus, 113 
Wilson, George, Mayor, 51 
Wolfe, death of, 31 
Woodwell, Joseph R., 108 

Zoological garden, 102 



[135] 



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